The Contract Of A Wedding Dress
by Lazy Cakes
Summary: Ciel, an angel of mysterious origins, finds himself trapped in hell as the bride of one very interesting demon.
1. Chapter 1

The first thing he heard was the hiss of wind through the trees.

The first thing he felt was the soft flowers he was bedded on, and the first thing he smelled was their fragrance.

He smiled with a happy hum, leaning further into the cool comfort of the petals.

The first thing he tasted was blood.

The first thing he saw were the feet of dozens of people.

He startled fully awake and pushed himself up to thunderous applause. Those around him were embracing one another and cheering, all wearing filthy, ragged robes. He was laying on a bed of white roses stained red with blood, which he soon realized was his own. With a strangled cry that was unheard, he grabbed for his shoulders, feeling a horrible, searing pain where wings should have lived. Tears welled in his eyes and fell down his face, unable to move in any other way. The people were still celebrating, shouting about how they had succeeded, congratulating one another and paying very little attention to what they had created. His head fell into the bed of roses and immediately cut himself on the thorns, but could not find the strength to lift it again. He could not remember what had happened to get him here. A cut behind his ear, down his neck, that he had not noticed before was depositing blood directly into his mouth and against his nose, and struggling as it was to just get adequate air, he inhaled the blood, too.

"No, no, no, don't let him drown!" Someone called, and the celebrating ceased immediately. Dirty, hot hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled, dragging his head upright and out of the thorns. He tried to cough away the rusty fluid in his throat, but he instead hyperventilated.

Ciel fainted, an angel fallen from grace.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you sure this thing is an angel? It looks...very weak."

"He _was_ an angel. I'm telling you, we succeeded. This is what we need."

"Are you really, really certain that it's an angel? We cannot afford to be wrong about this."

" _I am telling you_ , it's a fallen angel. Nobody's seen an angel before, even less a fallen one, so you have to trust me; I know what I saw. I know what I did. This is a failed angel."

There was a hand that patted Ciel's chest as the last sentence was said. He managed to open at least one of his eyes, breaking a seal of dried blood that seemed to cover his entire face. There were two figures, one with very vibrant red hair and another with very pale white hair, standing at the left of the first. He seemed to be laying on his back on some kind of raised platform. The stone under cloth pressing against his wounded back was agony that he was too weak to vocalize. The figure with red hair had his arms crossed, facing him and looking him over with uncertainty. The white-haired figure had his hand resting on Ciel's chest, staring at the other patiently.

"We've tried animals."

"Yes."

"And humans."

The man with the pale hair pulled his hand away. He was thoroughly coated with scars.

"Obviously."

"This is our last chance."

"Short of God, there is nothing left to give."

"If we fail…"

"We won't. Look at this creature; is it not perfect?"

"Too small for me. But that's irrelevant."

"It is perfect. It is a figure made directly by the hands of God; there is nothing purer to desecrate. If he does not accept this, he will accept nothing, and all is lost. This is our last chance."

Ciel tried to lift his hand, but even if he was strong enough to get it more than a few centimeters up, it was bolted tightly to the stone by a small iron band. The moment he tried to resist it, the metal hissed a burn into his skin. The man with red hair noticed him staring and trying to move, and took a wary step back.

"You drained away all its power?"

"We're using it to open the gates directly. There's none left in him."

Ciel didn't know who these people were.

He didn't know where he was; he couldn't even remember where he was supposed to be.

He didn't know who he was supposed to be.

He didn't know if anything they were saying was true, he wasn't even totally sure of his name.

But he did know that he wasn't human.

He did know that much, at least.

He knew that he was not human and was not meant to be on the human plain, and he knew that something had to be very, very, very wrong for him to be there.

"We are going to use its power, fine, but it still must be sent with a dowry. You cannot send a bride without a dowry."

"Honestly, I think he's probably sick of receiving goats and virgin blood. This creature is likely the only thing he doesn't have; he is everything on his own."

The man with red hair glared from the man with white hair to the weak form on their sacrificing tablet sourly.

"You know those girls get so sick of making wedding dresses."

The white haired man laughed.

"Are you afraid of them? I'll go and tell them their new job, if you cannot."

He walked out of the room. The door was somewhere behind Ciel, but he doubted he would be able to see if even if it was right in front of him. The man with red hair stepped closer. He stroked Ciel's cheek with a fingertip, seemingly surprised when the act lifted a small welt to the creature's skin.

"Poor creature." He finally said, and began to walk away.

"You do not yet know what fear can do to humans."


	3. Chapter 3

Soon after, Ciel was dragged from small room to small room, being tossed unceremoniously into a tub of frigid water and scrubbed clean of his own blood. The person who cleaned him was thickly veiled with dark fabric and plunged their hands into the fresh wounds on his back, ignoring his screams as they ripped out any remaining feathers.

He'd never even had blood before, nor any pain like this, he remembered at least so much; he was certain he'd never been touched by such horror.

And then someone was trying to force him to drink human broth but his body wasn't meant to _do_ that and just made him sicker, and he fainted before they finally gave up.

He woke up again in another room, where he was being stitched into layer after layer of ornate white lace and satin, corset laid over undergarments over another corset and stockings and huge levels of lavish lace that still felt cold. He was being held up by another veiled person, and it occurred to him dully that they were doing him a favor; if they touched him with bare hands, it would have burned. He was jabbed with a pin and it drew blood; one of the women shouted sharply and slapped the one who had poked him. The person holding him up shook him softly, seeing if he was conscious. He didn't even have the energy to attempt to speak, and even if he did he seriously doubted they would be able to understand him. These people were the antithesis of the kind of human he would have made himself visible to; how had they managed to make him like this? The person holding him shook him a little harder, and he managed a weak little groan. The women shrieked, and pulled one another away from him. The person holding him stopped immediately, and Ciel's head fell back limply against their shoulder. They screamed some kind of horror, but even if he had the strength to hurt them, he wouldn't have done it. They felt warm under their veil, and he was very, very cold.

Again, he lost consciousness.

Something pulled his eye open, only to slap it closed again. He opened it on his own. There was layer after layer of thick, sticky cream on his face, and someone was drawing black lines around his eyes. He was laying on the stone tablet again, surrounded by white roses again. Standing over the woman repainting his face with black gloves, the man with white hair was gazing down with some kind of sorrow.

"It would have been better if it had remained unconscious." Someone out of sight said. Ciel linked the voice to the man with red hair.

"We shall simply have to speak louder so as not to be lost in the screaming." The man with white hair responded.

Ciel didn't even have the energy to keep his eye open. His body twitched back and forth as he tried to force himself to lift, but he just couldn't do it. The woman giving him make-up drew away warily, throwing a glance to the man with white hair, who, aside from Ciel, was the only person wearing white in the room. Ciel could only make out shapes of figures against the walls, but they all wore black. He was fairly certain that their faces were veiled with red, or painted with something.

The man with white hair took a pair of gloves from someone near and stepped forward, brushing Ciel's hair away from his face. He stroked down his cheek and up his brow, pausing with his thumb over the angel's right eye. He glanced down at his chest, where Ciel's heart pounded fast and weak, like that of a frightened rabbit, before forcing his eyelid open and holding it there.

"For our savior." The man said, and he plunged an iron stake deep into Ciel's eye.

The screaming started soon after.

It started and did not falter, and endured for so long that Ciel was certain that, if he was ever to survive this, he would never be able to speak again.

The scream became less of a cry of pain and more of a beg for the pain to end as the stake was left there and the flames started.

The fires swallowed the tablet whole, with Ciel laying in the thick of it, screaming. The people's chant sounded like a dull drum beating somewhere much slower than his heart.

It did not matter.

The end came just the same.


	4. Chapter 4

In the darkness of some plain lost to human eyes, a creature stirred lazily. With a flick of his careless wrist, a pedestal came into existence in a reddish feature that was not quite light. Aside from it and the lavish throne he'd been napping in, though everything near existed, none of it was actually _there_. Slowly coming to be, a form dressed in fluffy layers of white lay across the pedestal.

Another sacrifice from those stupid humans.

They'd sent him so many toys; from the looks of it, they had yet to understand his preferences.

It looked like another girl in a wedding dress.

He might as well see what they'd done to her, the creature thought. He pushed himself to his feet and approached.

He stopped, several feet from the body on the tablet.

Laid overtop of her crossed arms were two feathered wings.

That of angels.

With an angry and sudden snarl, the creature threw his hand into the air, and the bonfire these stupid humans had sacrificed the angel in exploded outwards, charring anything nearby in moments.

He slid an arm under the girl and lifted her upright slightly, carefully taking her wings and laying them under her shoulderblades. Without a second thought, he laid her back down over them and reattached them with a touch at her collar. Though she would be far too weak to use them, at least she could not die from being separated. The little angel had not fallen freely, and he was disgusted that those beastly people had tried to take _his_ job upon themselves. He looked down at the makeup marring her true beauty and waved his hand over part of her face, lifting it away with a single thought. They had tried to make her skin tone darker, and look healthier; under the makeup, she was almost as pale as him. He lifted the rest of the gunk from her skin and threw the mass of human refinery into the void about him, slowly developing more and more of the reality it hid as he circled the pedestal and the creature atop it.

All angels are beautiful, he knew, but this one was certainly high praise.

Her face was tormented under its restful façade, with soft features that had only recently been contorted with such pain. They had treated her very roughly; her lip was split and there was a bruise blooming around her right eye. They'd dressed her more lavishly than he had ever seen; her dress was several feet longer than her in the front, with a train that fell off the pedestal and was gathered on the ground. The sleeves of the dress had puffs made of thick silk lace and tight lower sleeves of a sheer fabric with hand-embroidered pearls in swirls and stars, and traveled all the way up the backs of the girl's hands. He lifted one and felt how cold she was, even under the huge dress, and thought that blue was an odd choice of nail color. Her hair was a smokey sort of grey that had hints of blue, so he thought maybe they had worked with that. Speaking of her hair, it was rather short, and had long bangs and fringe that had been pulled away from her face and clipped in place with more pearls on a silver comb.

Knowing she would not wake for some time, the creature lifted her skirt, half curious, half bored.

There were three more layers to the outer dress, and then there were petticoats that fell to her knees. She was wearing long stockings made of lace that retreated above the petticoats and dainty silk bridal slippers, and he lifted the skirts at her knees with decreasing interest. She was wearing yet another layer of petticoats over lace-coated bloomers that looked more like shorts than bloomers. He lifted those and discovered that the angel on his pedestal was actually a boy.

Well, he was still cute.

The creature dropped the multitudinous layers of cloth and ran his hand over the angel's torso, letting it fall from his flat chest to his thin waist. He felt one of the eyelets to the lacing of his corset softly. The angel made a weak sound and his lips parted just a bit as he sensed the warmth against his side. The creature frowned. Not even he could be so cruel to this angel. He felt his cheek. He was exceptionally soft, but so _cold_. Almost tenderly, the creature lifted the angel in his arms and returned to his throne.

He laid the angel across his lap and rested his head on his shoulder, paying close attention to his weak breathing as he held the cold body to his own. He pulled the cloak from the top spires of his throne and laid it over the angel, who stirred a bit more at the shift. He smelled like humans and smoke, but somewhere under that roses, and somewhere even further something much sweeter.

It was hard to tell.

He took the angel's hands in his own- they were so small that both fit into one of his, with plenty of spare room- and held them to his chest, where heat radiated from him like a stove. He looked down again at the angel's face.

A small drop of red had fallen from his right eye, almost like a tear.

As softly as he could, the creature lifted the angel's eyelid.

From the outside, it had seemed totally fine, but the eye was hardly a mass of tissue, a gaping hole where pupil and color should have been.

With an infuriated snarl, the creature set fire to the human's crops, leaving nothing but ashes in mere seconds.

He closed the angel's eye and cupped his hand over it, not quite certain he could heal it.

The beast sat still for some time, focusing solely on the eye of the angel in his lap, aware that he was wasting time he should've spent working.

He checked the eye again. The wound was closed, but he seemed to have trapped some blood inside of it.

He closed the eye again and laid his hand over it.

The angel made a weak sound. He should've awoken by now, and the creature suspected some form of abuse he hadn't seen before had been used. He could safely assume this angel wasn't willingly given, yet no human should have had the strength it took to send him down. The creature lifted the cloak and pressed his hand against the angel's chest. Even his heart was cold, beating weakly.

The angel made another sound, something less conscious than a moan but more awake than a sigh, and leaned his head into the creature's shoulder, soft breath against his neck. The creature felt a wonderful stab of something between arousal and smugness, finding it funny that this pure being sought comfort from him. He leaned back in his seat and lifted his hand from the angel's eye. It was still purplish, blood trapped under the surface, with white crisscrosses of scarred tissue. The creature frowned slightly, unhappy that the extent of his skill seemed to have been met, when the angel huffed and awoke.

He opened his eyes and did not immediately move, breath caught in his throat as he stared up at the creature looking down over him.

Ciel saw a thing that should've resembled a rather handsome man, but he could hardly have been further from human. Two horns, those of a ram, curled out from the sides of his head, black as coal and reflective as obsidian. His hair was equally dark and fell around his face in a way that felt intentional yet unrefined, a lock of it resting against his nose. He was smiling mischievously with eyes as red as blood from an open wound and teeth that were straight and white, with canines to rival a vampire.

The demon chuckled quietly, deep in his chest.

The angel realized how he was positioned, and horror overtook his confusion. He gave a shriek and pushed away from the beast's chest, hitting some kind of stone flooring very roughly and scrambling to get up. He was aware of the weight against his shoulders, a familiar weight that he couldn't at the moment remember the purpose for, and a sort of blurred edge to the right side of his vision, but above that he noticed that he had barely enough energy to stand. He tried to run towards the only solid thing he could see to put between himself and the demon-a pedestal not unlike the one the humans had kept him on-and scrambled for it, fabric trapping him from the extravagant dress. His feet, bound in both tight and tractionless slippers and the yard of fabric at the front of the dress, could do nothing to save him as he tripped and lurched forward. His upper torso slammed into the tablet with a pained whine and he collapsed to his knees in front of it, flipping over and pressing his back against the cold stone, willingly exposing his chest to protect his wings.

The demon still had not moved. He was watching with poorly concealed interest, some sort of idle worry on his face. Ciel mentally scanned himself for any kind of weapon or defense; he felt the metal boning in his corset pressing against his side and wondered how difficult it would be to remove it.

It would have been of no help. He was in the demon's realm anyway.

The demon stood slowly, eyes never leaving Ciel. He took a tentative step forward, and Ciel inhaled sharply, pressing himself further against the tablet. There was a splitting headache forming in the right half of his head, making it hard to judge much of anything. Seeming as harmless as a small white rabbit with red eyes, the demon knelt slowly before Ciel. The tails of his coat pooled like oil on the ground where he knelt, and Ciel could only judge how close he was by the dark mass almost touching the hem of his white skirt.

The demon stared into the angel's face until he met his eyes, and held the unfocused gaze for a moment. He opened his mouth to speak, and the angel flinched at the sight of his sharpened teeth.

His voice was surprisingly soft and light, with a kind of softness to it.

"Scis ubi es?"

The angel made a small sound as his throat closed up, petrified.

The demon turned his head the other way, and rested one of his hands on his knee. "Scis quis ego sim?"

The angel's brow fell in confusion, and his lips parted as if he might speak, but closed his mouth suddenly. The demon shifted, and his newest sacrifice jerked backwards and away, hitting his head again on the tablet.

The demon settled, prepared to wait as long as it took for the angel to respond.

He didn't have to wait long.

"Où suis-je? Qui êtes-vous?"

The demon sighed.

"I suppose that is a no, to both questions." He lamented politically.

The angel lifted one of his hands to his shoulders.

"M-Mes coulisses…"

The demon stood and waved his hand, leaving the angel a generous bubble of space.

"I reattached them. You'll live."

"But-but you touched me?"

The demon turned, and looked down at the angel on his floor with confusion.

"Obviously."

"You didn't burn me." The angel countered, still seated on the ground, though he seemed to have lowered his guard enough to place one of his hands over the ache in his head.

"What?"

"Impure beings burn me if they touch me."

He traced a small welt against his cheek. The demon gave a dangerous, lilting, condescending chuckle.

"Who ever said _I_ was impure?"

The angel slid against the tablet sideways, away from the demon.

"I...I asked you where I am."

"And I asked you if you knew where you were." The demon responded, lifting the cloak that had been dropped to the floor in the angel's flight and tossing it again over the back of his throne.

"I don't think I like the answer to either of those questions." The angel responded.

When the demon turned around, the angel was in the opposite corner of the expansive room, back pressed against the wall and never taking his eye off the demon; his right one was hidden under his hand, trying to ease the pain. The demon reclined into his throne again, which was placed against the far wall of a now fully-developed chamber. He didn't say anything, simply gazed upon the angel, who was observing the room in its entirety.

"If you'll not answer that question, what of my other? Who are you?"

The demon smiled.

"There are many answers to that question."

He stood with ease in a single movement, and advanced towards the angel. The angel let him, eyeing him suspiciously but not dangerously. "The humans call me Satan, sometimes, though they missed a few letters of my name. I am Sebastian."

Sebastian relished in how the angel's eye widened and how he gasped. "So, that is one answer. Obviously," he waved his hand at the room, "I am a demon, though, I suppose, surely most important to you," Sebastian came to the angel and knelt before him, dipping his head almost mockingly,

"I am your fiancé."


	5. Chapter 5

"My-my _what_?!"

Ciel pushed himself as far into the corner as he could, squeezed against the wall uncomfortably.

"Don't you hold domain over the old French territories? You should understand what the word means better than I. We're intended for marriage."

"No, no, I understand just fine, but... _what?!_ How? Who ever ordained it? When? Why? What's the purpose of...this?!"

Sebastian stood to his full height, looking down upon the small angel imposingly.

"Do you know who you are? What you are? Do you remember anything, at all?"

"Wait, hold on-"

"-I think this is more important. Do you know what you are?"

"I…"

The angel shuffled the feathers on his wings as he thought. "I'm an angel, I know that much. I haven't fallen yet."

"Yes, thankfully, humans seem capable of only dragging angels down, not actually forcing them to fall. You'll have to do that to yourself."

"What?! I won't fall!"

"Not important right now. Do you know who you are?"

The angel opened his mouth with the attitude of 'of course I know who I am, what kind of ridiculous question is that?' when he gasped slightly. His face slacked, and took on deep confusion.

"I...I don't know...I...I can't remember much of anything of importance...it's just...just flashes of things."

The angel looked down and to his right, as if trying to recall, when he gave a pained groan and pressed his hand into his temple again, staggering slightly.

"I wouldn't recommend straining yourself. It's a wonder to me you're even still standing." Sebastian even held his hands out, preparing to catch the angel, should he fall.

But he did not.

Sebastian was impressed with the tenacity of the little creature, who was looking himself over and only just seeming to realize what he was wearing and what it actually meant.

"I-The humans, they-they were not in my domain, the ones who stole me, I held no domain over them…"

Sebastian knelt again, waves of concern coming and going as he overrode them with better reasoning. The angel gave a pained sound and pressed his hand over his eye, biting his lip.

"Do you remember your name?"

The angel's brow fell even lower as he focused, hard, chewing his lip in deep concentration.

"I...I think the humans call me Ciel."

 _Heaven_.

"But you don't remember your given name?"

Slowly, Ciel shook his head.

Sebastian stood.

"I'm not surprised, you've quite a head wound there. I shouldn't even have asked as much of you as I have. You should rest, and the rest will be figured out later. Unfortunately, it seems I have too much going on now to spend much more time on this affair."

"What affair? What's 'the rest'? Ghh…"

Ciel compressed his hand over his eye as tightly as he could, other hand forming a white-knuckled fist against his chest.

Sebastian gave the angel his space again as he stepped towards the middle of the room. With a wave of his hand, the tablet disappeared, replaced slowly by a staircase climbing into the darkness above.

"Have you forgotten, already? The humans sent you here with one purpose. They want us to marry."

"I have no interest in marrying, you or anyone else!"

"You're the bride. I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice in the matter."

"Alright, I'm not even a woman, and that's sexist. Where on heaven, earth, or hell would they even get such an idea?"

Though he spoke academically, the angel's voice was growing ever weaker, and had fallen to barely a breath of contained agony. Sebastian came close again, and extended a hand to Ciel.

"As I said, it will be discussed later. You're in dire need of rest and regeneration."

Ciel looked at the demon skeptically, and tried to step away from the wall unaided.

As soon as he braced himself against his leg, he passed out.


	6. Chapter 6

The angel crumpled to the floor with a final pained cry, and Sebastian let him fall though he could've easily caught him. If he didn't want to accept Sebastian's help, it served him right.

He considered just leaving him there on the floor. Sensibly, it would have been safer to not try to move him- Sebastian doubted his injuries would travel well- but as he looked down at the awkward way the angel's legs jutted out from under him sideways and his wings extended against the cold ground, he gave another sigh and knelt, gathering the compact body in his arms and lifting him with ease. The train of the stupid dress dragged behind him as Sebastian climbed the staircase carefully, finishing it with a door at the landing as he ascended.

It opened into a short hallway with only one other door, which Sebastian opened into his own quarters. It was the only space he had complete and sole domain over, where no others could find if he did not want them to. It was the safest place to keep his angel and newest bride, though he was well aware of how unseemly it would be when he found a purpose for this one as the rest.

He looked down at the still-bloody ring around the angel's eye and decided that he didn't much care what the speculation would be. If this angel was not properly cared for, if he did not recover, the form the humans had forced him into would surely die, and his soul would be lost to all, heavenly, hellish, or otherwise.

As Sebastian traversed his quarters and opened another door into his rarely-used bedroom, he begrudgingly acknowledged his appreciation for the British interior design; how else could he explain the dark wood desks and chairs and side-tables with leather and velvet, and hardbound books he had every intention of reading?

He crossed the immaculate space and carefully deposited the angel on top of the covers of his own bed. He laid him on his back, careful to stretch his wings out so he was not lying on them. The angel's hand lingered on Sebastian's arm, having rested against it, and Sebastian let it lay there. He'd passed the stage of being just cold and felt like little more than porcelain. The demon was half-inclined to open his eyes and check that they were not made of glass.

He lifted the angel's skirts to his ankles and slid his shoes off, placing them neatly on the floor near the corner of the bed. The angel stirred, shifting his weight onto one hip more than the other, tucking his feet up a few inches and making a small sound. Sebastian had a fleeting thought that this angel seemed most agreeable when he wasn't awake.

He created a few layers of blankets with a wave of his hand and laid them over the angel, bringing them up to his throat and making sure both his hands were under the coverings too. Sebastian wondered if just his fingers could've frozen while the rest of the angel survived; he knew humans often found this to be the result of frostbite.

Certain that the angel was at the least safe from others, Sebastian tapped at the front of the fireplace, leaving a fire as hot as he could make as he closed and locked the door.

The angel was running.

There was a house on fire, and he was running towards it. The angel could hear a baby crying inside, and as he ran, he passed its parents, lying under sheets.

He didn't care about them anymore.

All he cared about was the child inside, crying from the horrible pain of the heat and smoke, and he threw the door to the house open so he might rush through the flames beyond it.

The child was trapped in its crib, already burning. The angel stepped to the bars of wood, eaten by the hungry fire, and the child stilled. It looked up at the angel, unblinking, and the angel reached down and lifted the infant from its crib. He cradled the little girl against his chest and she looked up at him, eyes wide and taking the sight of him in entirely. She cooed nervously, and he bent closer over her, looking her in the eyes so she did not see the wreckage around them as he whisked her away from the horrible ashes of humanity.

He smiled for her; he couldn't help it. Once upon a time, children had been his favorite kinds of people, if he'd had to pick a favorite kind of human. They were just so soft, and blankly kind.

He kept his head down to smile at her, even after they left the house and the people trying to quench its destructive hunger, and he just kept walking with her, unsure of where he was going. His feathers dragged behind him in the silt, making soft sounds like whispers, and the girl smiled. She grabbed for his nose and laughed gaily.

As soon as that laugh rang out, the angel stopped moving, and looked up. A woman stood before him, looking down at the child with kindness and serenity. She was clothed in crimson, even her hair red like a dripping wound. Careful to hold her neck steady, the angel extended the child to the woman. She made a small sound as she smiled, and the girl burbled as she passed hands. By the time the woman of red held the child to her chest, however, and the transfer was complete, the girl was soundly sleeping. The angel bent into a deep bow, extending his wings above him. When he completed his bow, he leapt into the air, and the woman watched him disappear into the night.

Ciel jerked awake.

He was laying on his side, curled slightly. He stared ahead of him, at a wall made of what appeared to be dark wood. His mind leapt back and forth; where was he? He was laying on a bed, and a large one, if his spread wings were truly lying on it too. There were several heavy blankets over him, and he was still wearing the dress. He pushed himself up, immediately aware of how stiff his entire body felt. He leaned heavily against the headboard, tucking his wings slightly against him. Though he no longer felt the severe pressing pain around his eye, everything he saw through it seemed blurry, and sort of red. He looked as best he could around the room as he pushed the covers off. It looked like a bedroom, with a vanity, armoire, and bed made of dark wood. The whole space seemed dark, really; even though a hearty fire burned in its place, the room had shallow shadows under only the darkest spaces, the rest of the room dim. Heavy velvet curtains hung over the wall where Ciel assumed windows were, but they stretched all the way to the ceiling, which Ciel could barely see. He stood up, noticing his shoes tucked against the footboard, the only white in the room, aside from him. He slipped them on, gathering the front of his skirt in huge handfuls just so he could walk.

There was only one door to the room, and it was already open enough that he would've been able to make it through without having to push it. It was a huge door, going all the way to the ceiling, and looked like it was made of heavy wood, too heavy for him to push on his own.

This room appeared to be empty, and somewhat safe, but it also felt confining. He didn't know where he was. If someone-he tried not to think of the demon-came for him, they could easily corner him. He didn't have the strength to fly; he felt faint from just standing. There was no way he would be able to protect himself.

Yet, if he left, he would not know where he was going, if there was even a way to escape this place, and he seemed more likely to run into someone while on the move. Plus, his stealth was severely hindered; the dress he was stitched into trailed behind him by at least the length of his own body. The issue of his strength episode not be ignored, either; he was a tenacious being, but it was doubtful he could make it far. And even if he did manage to escape, if there was a demon near, he was in hell. This place, what seemed to be the demon's personal realm, at least seemed to be devoid of other demons; there was no telling who would be free to roam the depths of hell, or with what intent they stalked.

He felt horribly ill. Staying put seemed to be a bad idea, but moving seemed worse.

As he stared into the fire, he had grown weaker and weaker, and knelt slowly. He sat on his legs in front of the fire, and felt as if he was going to cry. He was horribly confused, which frightened him almost more than the actual fear of what had happened to him, he yet mourned the torment he had endured under the humans, and somehow knew that it was not the worst of what was to come. The bride of a demon! How could any creature be deserving of that?

As he grit his teeth and held back tears, he glanced over to the door, the opening of which he could now see through.

He choked on the gasp in his throat. The demon was sitting in an armchair just outside, a book open in his lap.

Ciel could not see his face-his horn was blocking the way- but he skittered around the corner of the fireplace anyway, pushing into the small alcove it made and peeking around the edge to watch the beast. What had he called himself? Sebastian? He sat still and upright, and as he turned the page of his book, called out quietly.

"I know you are awake, in there."


	7. Chapter 7

Sebastian heard the angel rise and traverse the room to his left, but he didn't bother to look up. The angel didn't seem likely to receive the sight of him well. He wondered, though, if the angel was strong enough to walk properly at all.

He thought of the angel's bluish hair, and frowned. _The Encyclopedia of Angels Yet in Service was_ open in his lap, a book that was sent down from above and edited often. Sebastian had the last twenty-nine editions on a shelf, each slightly smaller than the last.

The book was supposed to serve as a guide of which angels still belonged to Heaven and served the other realms, with a small description as the humans described each individual under their name and the purpose to which they served, and under that an even smaller description of their aura. Sebastian hadn't spent nearly enough time around Ciel to glean much of anything from his personality except maybe _standoffish_ or _sarcastic_ , and none of the physical descriptions matched a small boy with pale wings, tobacco smoke hair, and blue eyes. His name wasn't going anywhere, either; _Ciel_ meant literally heaven and the sky, and couldn't have been his given name.

Through the door, he heard the angel's dress shift as he sat down, and it occurred to him that the humans might have managed to actually change the angel's identity.

Not expecting to find anything but desperate for something, Sebastian turned to the section at the back of the book, the _Fallen_.

These pages did not seem to grow with the shrinking of the rest of the book; rather, the small _Abandoned Angels_ pamphlet steadily gained pages. He had the most recent copy somewhere, he knew, but Ciel definitely wasn't an abandoned angel; he would've readily accepted whatever the humans had done to him, had he been.

He flipped through the fallen angels, who lacked written physical descriptions. In their place, an animal was written in Latin, and under that animal, before their personal descriptions, the occupation each had been assigned.

There were no new entries. There had not been for millennia.

The angel gasped suddenly, softly, and Sebastian heard him retreat further into the room. He must've realized where he was.

"I know you are awake, in there." He called quietly, just loud enough that he knew the angel would hear. There was silence from within the room. Sebastian closed the book and placed it on the table nearest his chair, standing. He pushed the door into the room a little wider, and closed it behind him.

The angel had barely disturbed the bed where he rested, though the comb seemed to have fallen out of his hair. It was laying on the pillow, pearls glinting dully in the scant firelight.

Slowly, Sebastian scanned the room, finding a single blue eye glaring out from the shadows of the corner behind the fireplace. The angel was leaning heavily against the wall (again), his now-freed hair loosely covering his damaged eye.

"How do you feel? Do you remember anything else?"

Sebastian lifted the comb from the bed and crossed the room to place it on the vanity. He passed very near to Ciel's hiding spot, testing the angel's patience. He let Sebastian come near without shying away, but Sebastian watched his gaze travel and lock onto his horns. Sebastian could almost feel the discomfort radiating from the small being. He kept his back to Ciel, glancing at him now and then through the mirror as he straightened the odds and ends before it.

"Where am I? This wasn't where we were before."

"This is my bedroom, in my own private chambers. I thought you would be..safest, here. This is a closed space."

"You put me in your bed?"

He didn't make it obvious, but Sebastian could feel the edge in his voice.

"Oh, come now. It's not as if I molested you; you needed rest where you would not be disturbed."

"How...how long was I asleep for?"'

Sebastian turned around and leaned against the vanity, looking down at the angel. He tried not to seem intimidating, but it was a difficult feat when he was nearly twice Ciel's height. He rolled his head back and forth, eyes closed.

"Oh...about seventeen human hours, I'd say. Time is not a necessary element to your new home, you'll find."

"'New home'?! I hardly think so; I'll not stay here-"

"-I'm afraid you don't have a choice! You cannot leave here unless someone comes to take you away, which would only happen if you had a duty elsewhere _and_ that someone knew where you were, and I doubt even the humans that sent you here know where you are! I am sorry, I truly am, but you cannot leave. Nobody can."

"...Not even you?"

" _Especially_ not me. I don't think you understand what us demons are, at least, not us demons in charge, anyway, which also tells me that you're a younger creature, I suppose."

"What?"

Sebastian looked down at the angel. He was wincing, and Sebastian could see that he had his hand pressed over his eye again.

"I shouldn't like to overwhelm you. Are you still in pain? I thought you should've rested for longer."

Sebastian knelt, and Ciel pulled further into the corner, looking at him unsurely. Sebastian bit back his impatience. "You need to rest."

"I want you to explain yourself, first. And I certainly won't rest in _your_ space; it's horribly improper!"

Sebastian snarled, and Ciel dropped into a low, defensive crouch. His wings snapped to alignment down his spine, and his brow darkened dangerously.

This angel was capable of things he wasn't even aware of.

Sebastian rubbed his temple, and sighed.

"I'm trying my best to do right by you. You know that, don't you? Your case isn't very unique, you know; I happen to have quite a bit of experience with sacrifices from the humans. Well, mostly human sacrifices, but so far, you've been rather similar. Will you at least trust that I know how to handle a sacrifice?"

Ciel did not move. He only glared.

Sebastian stood, and moved to the other side of the room. "I promise you, I will explain what is going on, and what I can do to help you, and what your options will be. Believe it or not, though you probably will, I have even less interest in you than you do in me. And I know, you have very little interest in me. I don't want to be married any more than you do."

Ciel blinked, but that was the only indication that he had heard any of it. "I will answer any questions you have, but you're still very injured. In this place, the only way you can be healed is to regenerate the energy that takes. Please, rest, and I swear I'll still be here when you wake up."

"I don't know if I even trust you enough to _want_ to wake up to knowing you're around."

"Ouch."

"I think you'll live." Ciel shot back.

Sebastian felt a twinge of some emotion he long since thought he had lost the ability to feel.

"If I lock you in, will you sleep? I'm not going to explain anything until you're at the least aware enough to remember it."

"You think my being locked into a room makes me feel safe? I'd rather be locked _out_."

"You are too stubborn. I would give you the key if I trusted you."

"You're dangerous. I would have run away if I knew where to go."

"I'm locking you in either way. Rest, if you even care to stay alive."

Sebastian grit his teeth, left the room, and slammed the door. He let out a deep, frustrated growl.

The emotion he had felt had settled into his stomach, and he was sure of the name of it, now.

Loathing. Utter loathing.

Inside, Ciel gave his own agitated cry and fell in a lump onto the floor. He didn't want to lay in the bed, but the stupid demon had been right on one account; he was still exhausted.

He dragged himself in front of the fireplace and curled up right on the floor, spreading his wings out to reflect the fire's heat.

He was lost. Completely lost.


	8. Chapter 8

Sebastian had too much to do to worry about the brat. He took a moment to compose himself, take a few deep breaths. At the very least, there wasn't much the angel could do to hurt himself in there.

He hadn't had a sacrifice actually succeed for a long while, and anything even half as lively as this for even longer.

Mostly, he just got goats.

Sebastian stepped away from the door and developed a tarry, churning feeling in his stomach. Maybe he had been a little too cruel to the angel; he had already been through a significant amount of trauma _before_ being sent to an inescapable place where nothing and nobody was familiar.

He flipped his hair out of his face and tucked that remorse deep into the back of his mind.

He stalked away without locking the door.

The angel stared at the water.

The bubbles had long since stopped coming up, and humans were splashing all around him.

But they did not know where to look.

The angel did.

With a deep breath, the angel came to the underwater ledge and dove over it.

Though the sun above was blinding, the water was dark and cold, and seemed willing to push the angel back to the surface. He beat his wings against the water to aid in pushing him down, and in the dark quiet, a hand emerged.

A boy was staring up at the angel, arms out to him.

His lips were blue and his eyes were bloodshot, dark hair floating in cloudy water.

The angel reached out and held the boy's upper arm.

The boy did not question the being before him; he grabbed onto the angel's wrist and clung to it, nails digging into pale skin.

They broke the surface of the water in near silence, and the angel drew upon whatever strength he had in his rarely-used legs to drag the boy through the shallows.

The human was less of a boy and more of a young man, but his face was still round and eyes still wondering, and as the angel finally dragged him to dry land between whispering plants, he grabbed the angel by the shoulders and pulled himself against the angel's chest. He began to cry, voice hoarse.

"Mon frere-il est seul! Il est seul!"

The angel gathered the boy in willowy arms and held him close. As he hushed the boy and ran his fingers through his wiry hair, water fell away, and the boy was dried.

The angel looked across the water to a smaller boy with the same deep eyes and dark hair and skin as the one he held. He was crying, now, but his tears would dry. He would grow to be strong, and tall, like his brother.

"Il est dur, aussi. Ton frere est dur, mon garçon."

The boy nodded, but he made a weak sound and buried his face further in the angel's chest anyway.

There was a gentle hand on the angel's shoulder, and he looked up.

The woman in red stood behind him.

Softly, the angel relinquished his hold on the boy, and she held him by the shoulders. The boy looked to her, tears still running down his face.

The angel slipped away from the boy, and the boy stood.

He was almost as tall as the woman, and as she brushed his hair back and wiped the tears from his face with crimson nails, he smiled weakly.

The red woman turned to the angel, who bowed deeply to her, allowing his wings to stretch across the ground as he did so. By the time he stood again, the boy was asleep against the woman's shoulder.

In silence, the angel turned away and lifted his wings.

He skated across the surface of the water and took off into the midday sun, with the woman still watching.

Ciel startled awake. Had he really fallen asleep on the floor?

Slowly, he pushed himself up, aware of his aching body. Apparently, he had.

The fire had burned down to embers, and his joints felt stiff. He had a raging headache, and wondered if this was what humans experienced after drinking excessively.

He stretched his wings deeply, but they were too weak to be beaten in any way.

Had the demon really given his wings back?

He lifted himself carefully, finally taking a moment to inspect what had been done to him.

He was dressed like a bride, he had already known that much, but the two corsets he had been laced into seemed to add inches to his waist rather than cinch it. One was under the dress, directly against his skin, and the other was outside the dress, with blue ribbon tied in flouncy bows at his hips. Both were boned with metal, but were stitched effectively into place.

His eye still seemed to be the epicenter of his headache, and as he felt around his eye with careful fingertips, found that there was a small streak of dried blood against his cheek.

Why was he not covered with burns? How had the humans managed to remove his wings? How had they managed to entrap him at all?

Had the demon really locked him into the room?

Ciel took the doorknob in both hands and pulled with all his might. It swung open with little sound, and he darted out.

He found himself in an equally dark room, with bookshelves lining the walls filled with hard covered books, most in languages he did not recognize, and several chairs at different spaces in the room, each with a small table beside it.

The door clicked shut behind him, and as he turned to see, found the wall shelved with books.

His stomach dropped.

The door was gone.

He spun around and found that the room suddenly seemed much longer, much darker, and much more dangerous.

Only one way to go.

With a deep, steadying breath, Ciel crept along the wall, skirting the edges of the room. He looked for anything out of place; a bright book, a slightly shorter chair, even a table pushed out of place.

But there was none.

Everything was immaculate, symmetrical, and intentional, and the silence was so oppressive that Ciel felt heavier, slower, and weakened.

He began to run.

He stumbled several times over his skirts, but he kept running anyway, towards an end to the room that he could only imagine was actually there.

Sebastian heard the door to his bedroom close, and sighed irritably.

He looked down at the cowering form that had once been a human, and then to the blood on his hands, and then sighed again.

He was, after all, in the middle of something.

He disappeared from the space he worked in and opened the door to his own quarters.

He really should've locked the door.

The angel tripped, suddenly, and in the time it took for him to hit the ground, Sebastian had made it from his position at the door to just behind the angel.

He was almost disappointed, when the angel did not startle or gasp at the sight of him. He was rather beginning to enjoy the subtle attention.

"You know, I gave you a lot of trust in not locking that door."

"You know, I don't much care for the trust of a demon."

Sebastian had begun to reach out to help the angel, but upon the last comment, swiftly stood and turned away.

"I'm assuming you're as rested as you'll get, if you were so willing to run away. Have you remembered anything else?"

The angel pushed himself up until he was sitting, and rubbed at his right eye again.

"I...no. I don't know if there's even anything to remember."

"Nonsense. The humans couldn't have just synthesized you; only humans can be made from humans."

"Yes, I've heard the adage; Angels from Above, Humans from Humans, Demons from None. At the least, I remember that much."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow, turning to look again at the pile of white on his floor.

"Though that's not correct, it does prove that you remember something. Is that what they've been teaching you?"

"Eh? How is it not correct?"

With little apparent difficulty, the angel stood. Sebastian knelt down and held onto his forehead with one hand and his chin with the other, trying to check his eye before the angel retaliated.

Remarkably, the angel stiffened but made no attempt to escape.

"The whole 'Demons from None' bit. It's new, and not true; on one front, nothing can be made from nothing, and on the other, demons are made from angels."

"What?!"

Suddenly, the little angel jerked away from the creature's hands, backing against a shelf.

Sebastian gave him a skeptical look.

"Demons are simply Fallen Angels under another name."


	9. Chapter 9

The fallen angel looked down at the newly sacrificed one, who seemed on the verge of fainting.

Ciel pressed his hand to his temple and looked up again at Sebastian. His horns curled around the sides of his head, and a few locks of hair had been curled into them too, equally dark, but far less reflective. His eyes were red. His teeth were sharp. He had no wings.

He was no angel.

"You seem shocked to hear that."

"I…"

Ciel clenched his fist and backed further against the shelves. "I don't know that I believe you."

The demon gave an amused huff through his nose, not quite enough to be a snort.

"You don't believe the only explanation you have? Or tell me, do you remember something you trust more?"

Ciel took a tentative step away, brow darkening dangerously. Sebastian took on a sort of distraught look, almost a pout. "I told you that I hadn't wanted to overwhelm you."

"After all that's happened, it would be foolish to think I could be placid with anything."

Sebastian turned away. He lifted one chair and carried it across the room a short distance to another chair, where he set them facing one another, and pulled a small orb out of his pocket. He placed it on the table, where, upon contact, it began to emit a weak yellowish light.

Sebastian looked back towards the edge of the room and found that the little angel was drawn to the lamp as a pale moth to flame, blind in the darkness. Both of his eyes were locked onto the small sphere, which allowed better inspection of his damaged eye.

It seemed to have healed as much as it was going to. The scars were still there, little lines that formed a sort of jagged star under the uneven stab of whatever had been forced in, and the previously blue eye was permanently tinted with red, a sort of purplish result.

Suddenly, though only slightly, the angel recoiled, unsure.

"Do you miss the sunlight? I will admit, it has hardly left my thoughts since the day I saw it last. Though, personally, I think I miss the stars even more."

The phantom of a once-powerful creature directed his attention towards Sebastian, eyebrows close together, though if he was confused or skeptical, it was hard to tell. Never taking his eye away from Sebastian, Ciel sat softly in the seat offered to him.

"Explain yourself."

Sebastian laughed. It was hardly an amused chuckle, but it was threatening all the same. Ciel clenched his fists and leaned slightly away in his chair. It did not go unnoticed.

"You're more lively than I thought you'd be. Very demanding."

The demon leaned his elbow against his armrest and his horn against his hand.

"What did you think I would be?"

Sebastian frowned slightly.

"Before I was asked to work...ehm, _down here_ , littler angels were usually just cherubs. Most of them were barely able to make full sentences. Even the ones that weren't cherubs were usually little more than messengers. Very subservient."

"You were _asked_ to? More like punished."

"Believe what you will, those in service here are yet angels, and the favorites. Only angels who were exceptionally able were asked to take on such a difficult task. And I suppose that answers your demand, too. Fallen angels willingly left the sanction of heaven because there was no punishment for humans who found themselves in the hands of mortal folly, and though a good number have been corrupted over the stressful millennia in this place, we are still angels."

"Are you, really?" Ciel crossed his legs and leaned back slightly so he would not have to look directly at Sebastian's horns. The demon scowled.

"Here, look," Sebastian stood, and stepped away into the dark. He returned with a book, which he dropped into Ciel's lap.

" _The Encyclopedia of Angels Yet in Service_?"

"Turn to the back. Page 666 marks the start of the _Fallen_ section. My entry is four pages after that."

"I…"

Ciel looked down at the book in his hands. He had barely been able to read the cover.

"Here." Sebastian pulled another ball of light out of his pocket and handed it to Ciel carelessly. The angel caught it nervously; though it had a radius of maybe two inches at most, it filled his entire hand. It was warm, and gave off a light slightly more pale than the one on the table.

They sat in silence as Ciel flipped through the book.

"Sebastian...Michaelis?"

"Yes. House of Michael; I served as a healer to ill humans, before they designed their own doctors and medicines. When I was obsolete, I was offered this position. I didn't refuse."

"...What is it that you do now, exactly?"

Sebastian shifted uncomfortably.

"I don't think you want to know that, at least not in any detail more than what that book will tell."

"What does Oreamnus Americanus mean?"

Sebastian knocked on his horn softly.

"Mountain Goat. I swapped my raven's wings for a ram's horns."

"Angels can have dark wings?"

"My lord, you really don't remember anything at all?"

The little angel flushed angrily.

"This book says that you're concise and polite, but first it says you're mischievous and crude."

Sebastian smiled with another chuckle.

"That book cannot have any part of an entry removed unless the entire entry is. Remarkably, demons are capable of change, and just as they can become more caring towards humans, they can also become cold and lose sight of their morals. Time and darkness do cruel things to a mind."

Ciel looked up, confused by the sudden listful tone to the demon's voice, when the ball in his hands became cold, its light weak. The one on the desk went out entirely, and Sebastian sighed as little more than inconvenienced. "Speak of the devil." He sighed again as he stood, and a quiet laughter could be heard from below. Ciel closed the book and placed it on the table, holding the weak ball of light close to his chest.

Sebastian extended a hand to him.

"You had better come along."

He said.

"They're only here for the new arrival."


	10. Chapter 10

Ciel followed Sebastian out of the book-filled room and onto a staircase landing. He only saw a few steps before the stairway fell into complete dark emptiness. Sebastian turned to him with an odd expression, as if he was both disgusted and afraid. He opened his mouth and made to speak several times, before stopping and considering.

"Just...don't let anyone touch you."

"What? Why?" Ciel took a step away, startled.

"You don't want to find out."

With that, Sebastian turned around again and descended the stairway. As he moved, more steps appeared, and Ciel followed reluctantly.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Ciel made the sudden decision that he did not want to go any further into the room they descended into.

It was a low-ceilinged space with empty sconces across the walls and flooring that seemed to be coated with a thin layer of some kind of reflective oil.

The room itself was hardly a problem; its inhabitants, however, were.

A figure in a dark suit not unlike Sebastian's stood in the center of the room, several feet from the base of the stairs, watching a much lighter form try to skate across the floor.

The new demon had hair as dark as Sebastian's and eyes as red, but his horns grew straight off his head and up, like an ibex or gazelle, and his eyes were slanted down angrily, impatiently.

The other creature had the figure of a young teen not unlike Ciel, but his hair was very light blond, and his wings were a sort of tawny, like some kind of owl. He didn't seem like much of an angel to Ciel, though it occurred to him that he had scarcely even seen himself, and couldn't remember any others. He was giving little giggles as he got better at skating his shoes across the oily floor, and spun in a circle around the still demon. He ended his spin too quickly, though, and as he slid further into the dark distance, trying to keep his balance, the demon turned to Sebastian and where Ciel hid in the shadows behind him.

"Oh, you've got a live one. Been awhile, hasn't it?"

The other demon bent forward, peering around Sebastian to try to get a good look at Ciel.

Suddenly gripped with distrust, Ciel tucked himself behind Sebastian, unsure of why he was trusting one demon over the other.

A weak smile cracked across the new demon's face, something cruel.

"Please. You wouldn't be here if he hadn't survived." Sebastian sounded impatient, like he was scolding a child.

The other demon feigned a look of offense.

The other angel slid close again, splayed awkwardly to make sure he could keep his balance, and flipped his head up, breathless. He grinned at Sebastian, but caught a glimpse of the white dress behind him, and true glee filled his eye.

"Ooh, a new one! Hello! Hi!"

The blond tried to skate up to the stairwell, but the other demon held his arm out, stopping him. "Aw, come on, Claude, can'cha see how scared they are?" The blond hung off the demon's arm. He turned back to Ciel and waved cheerily. "Hiiiiii! It's okay, come on out! C'mere, I promise I won't hurt you!"

Sebastian stepped aside, looking down at Ciel. Ciel held the ball of light closer to his chest, but did not step forward.

"Who are you?"

"Like you, now." The other angel responded quickly with a coy smile.

"How did you get here?"

"Same as you." The angel responded, again just as quickly.

"What's your purpose here?"

The other angel stalled, smile slipping off his face.

The two demons looked to one another, eyebrows raised. The new demon pressed his hand onto the angel's waist.

"Hey, you know what? You should come with me." The other angel smiled again quickly, seeming utterly relaxed in the presence of two demons.

"It's okay." Sebastian comforted quietly, and Ciel suddenly recoiled.

"I don't need anyone to tell me _anything_ is okay is _this_ place." He snarled. The other angel gave a sudden laugh. Ciel snapped his attention to the other angel. "You're included in that."

"Aw, come on, I'm just playing with you."

"Play nice." The other demon said to him, but the angel ignored him. He smiled at Ciel flirtatiously, sticking his tongue out.

The center of his tongue had a healed scar in the shape of a little star.

Ciel held his hand up to his own eye with a gasp.

"See? We're alike! Come on, I won't hurt you. I promise. Plus, doesn't this look fun?"

To emphasize his words, the other angel spun around in a tight circle.

He was wearing white, like Ciel, but his clothes were far less modest; he had a set of shorts overlapping stockings that were ripped and frayed, with purple ribbons at the tops of them, the same purple as the ribbon around his throat, which held the collar of a shirt that, though it had long sleeves, was completely devoid of a back panel so that his wings were free. He had a cropped jacket around his shoulders that he wasn't really wearing, the sleeves of which fluttered around as he spun. He had pearls in his hair, but unlike Ciel's abandoned comb, his were floating through his hair loosely. He looked less like a bride or even an angel and more like a tricking nymph from some human fairy tale.

Skating around _did_ look fun, Ciel thought, but there were far more important matters.

He made to step back towards Sebastian when he saw the glint of desperation in the other angel's eyes. He seemed urgent, and his smile suddenly became forced.

Was this angel trying to help him?

Unprepared to deny the angel his silent request, Ciel stepped into the oil on the floor.

He was prepared to step onto the floor, and had braced himself adequately, but he had not been prepared for the other angel's sudden rush to hug him. With a small squeal of delight, he dashed towards Ciel and threw his arms around his waist. Ciel was a little shorter and a lot less steady than the other angel, and under the sudden impact of him, Ciel was knocked backwards.

The two tumbled down, Ciel going first, and in his panic, Ciel tried to push the angel away. The other angel seemed to be equally startled at the sudden loss of balance, but neither was capable of righting even just himself, shoes made in the same silky and tractionless style, wings adding weight to their backs, and slippery floor coming ever closer.

Ciel hit the ground first, on his back, grabbing the other angel's jacket sleeves as he fell on top of him, whose arms were around his waist. The ball of light shattered as it hit the ground, bits of light flying everywhere like luminescent dust. The other angel fell mostly onto Ciel's skirt, between Ciel's legs rather than crushingly on top of them (that, at least, he was thankful for), and his chest slammed into Ciel's, knocking all the breath out of him.

Ciel couldn't even see the ceiling, low though it was, through the darkness.

The two angels stalled in time, one laying on the other, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Ciel felt the eyes of the demons upon him, and it felt dangerous.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

The blond angel scrambled away as quickly as he could, and Ciel gasped for air. Though the floor definitely had some sort of substance on it that was making it reflective and frictionless, it seemed confined to the floor, not leaving residue on Ciel's skin or clothes.

By the time he managed to sit up, Sebastian was kneeling by his shoulder, and the other angel was hiding behind his demon.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine...I'm fine." Ciel nodded hastily as he responded, wary of the hands that were creeping around his shoulders. He didn't need Sebastian's help to stand again.

He stood up just fine. Staying standing, however, was the hard part.

Ciel slipped nearly as soon as he stood, and spent a few awkward seconds trying to right himself. He closed his hand around the stairwell banister, shaking light particles out of his hair, where they rested on his shoulders and wingtops.

"I'm sorry about your light...I can give you another one. I just...I got excited! You're like a cute little doll!"

The other angel stepped forward again, gaining his lost energy quickly. Sebastian stepped in front of Ciel warily. He did not skid on the floor, nor did he even give the smallest inkling of losing his balance. The other demon gave a dangerously impatient sound, crossing his arms tightly.

The two demons stared one another down, the angels looking at one another unsurely from under their arms.

"Ciel, are you really all right?" Sebastian murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

"I'm fine, why are you so worried? Did you not see the multiple times I fell before?" Ciel snapped suddenly, backing away from Sebastian.

The other demon gave an amused snort.

"Come on, Ciel, let's go get another light." The other angel pleaded, glancing nervously to Sebastian.

"Fine." He sighed, rubbing his temple.

The other angel did not rush him, this time. He quietly came forward and held onto Ciel's upper arm, pulling him away from the demons. Ciel slid carefully, and pitched forward a bit before stretching his wings back. The other angel gave a little giggle, dropping his hand down and holding onto Ciel's.

His hand felt warm, comforting, something real and conscious in this hellish place.

It was nice.

But the heat from his hand continued to grow. It began to ache, and then burn.

With a short, startled cry, Ciel jerked his hand out of the other angel's and fell against the wall.

"What?!"

" _You burned me_!"

"I what? Oh- _oh_."

The other angel saw the red marks raised on Ciel's hand and gasped, realization hitting him.

"I thought you were an angel!" Ciel lamented, holding his injured hand close to his chest.

"You're still pure? You're still pure! Sebastiaaaaaan!" The other angel turned to the demons as the one he addressed drew closer.

"I told you not to let anyone touch you." Sebastian groaned, holding his hands out, obviously meaning for Ciel to extend his injured one. He nursed it close to his heart instead.

"Sebastian, are you a demon or what? I can't believe you haven't-"

"-Alois!" The other demon interrupted sharply.

The angel stopped, his hands out dramatically.

"Please, don't overwhelm him, Alois. Really."

Sebastian brushed a hand through his hair, seemingly humiliated.

Ciel backed away against the wall. Sebastian saw the confusion and fear and hurt on his face, and his embarrassment became something more sorrowful. The other angel, assumingly Alois, bit his lip and looked Ciel over.

"Let's go, c'mon. And I promise, I won't touch you again."

Alois skated away, trying to stay moderate, and Ciel followed, only after glancing back at the demons, glaring at one another.


	11. Chapter 11

Ciel followed Alois through a door he hadn't even noticed against the side of the wall, and almost as soon as the door closed behind him, he could hear shouting on the other side.

Alois turned to Ciel and crossed his arms.

"Are you seriously still pure, or were you just messing with me?"

"I-what?"

Alois glanced Ciel over again, studying the dress.

"I guess you must be. You haven't been down here all that long, have you? Plus, you're Sebastian's. He's kinda weird."

"What are you saying? And how did you burn me? You're an angel too!"

The other angel smiled crookedly, hungrily.

"You'll understand the longer you're down here. I mean, you came for a reason."

The blond turned away, pulling his jacket straight. He had led Ciel into a hallway of intricate doors, and seemed to be studying each considerably.

"How do we get out of this place?"

Alois waved a hand playfully.

"Through a door. If you just think of the room you wanna go to, you'll end up there eventually."

"No, I mean, how do we escape hell?"

Alois stopped walking. He turned back to Ciel incredulously.

"You can't. Nobody can leave hell. Why would you even want to, anyway?"

"Uh, because it's _hell_?! Why would you want to stay?!"

Alois groaned, brushing his fingers through his hair.

"You didn't come willingly."

"Of course not! Who would?!"

"Me. And most anyone you'll find down here, whether they admit to it or not." Alois shrugged, pushing one of the doors open. "Look, the more time you spend here, I think the more you'll understand. It's really not so bad to be an angel bride. I mean, Sebastian's...different, but it's all mostly the same. You'll get all the attention you could ever want, that's for sure."

Alois led Ciel into a room of dark spheres, shelved neatly. There seemed to be little variation of size, but as the angels passed by, they emitted a dull light, and each was slightly different.

"I don't want attention." Ciel's voice echoed through the space, surprising himself at how loudly he'd spoken.

"Of course you do. Maybe not in any way you can name, but everyone wants attention."

Alois leaned back to look at the higher shelves of lights.

He pointed to one on the second highest shelf, well above their heads. "Can you fly up and grab that one?"

"Can't you? My wings were damaged. I doubt they can carry me yet."

The other angel shook his head.

"I'm molting. I'll never fly again."

"What!?"

Ciel stepped back and truly inspected Alois' wings for the first time.

He had first thought that they were speckled, like a barn owl, but found that the darker splotches of feathers were actually dying, and that paler spots were actually bald. Indeed, even as Ciel watched, a few feathers fell loose to the ground.

"Yours probably will too soon. Don't worry; you don't really ever need them down here. Usually someone taller is around to get you what you want."

"Wait, hold on! I'm not going to lose my wings-Sebastian reattached them for me!"

"I keep forgetting, you didn't come here willingly. Most angels who end up here are abandoned before they even arrive; you still won't give it up, huh? Abandoned angels are stripped of their wings and rights once they fall from purity."

Ciel lost his balance, utterly overwhelmed, and tried to lean back against another shelf. It teetered dangerously, and he shied away. With nothing else to lean against, he knelt on the ground, breathing carefully. Why did his chest feel so tight? Was it just the corset? "Hey, it's really not that bad; I mean, you're probably a lesser angel, right? You're probably better off being abandoned than trying to serve as a messenger or something."

"No, I-I don't remember what I was before. I can't remember anything before I was-before I ended up here."

"You can't?"

"Can you?"

Ciel looked up at Alois, who had knelt nearby, but not close enough to touch. Alois sat down and crossed his legs into a circular shape.

"Of course I can. I was a messenger to humans, but there wasn't anyone who needed me; heaven stopped sending direct messages to the humans long ago. Nobody spoke to me; hardly anyone even noticed I was there." Alois propped his chin on his hand, looking away into the distance.

" _She_ must have noticed that I was slipping, because she abandoned me before I even knew I wanted to leave. I got too close to the humans, I guess, but I didn't fight back when they took me. Claude was waiting for someone new; he wasn't expecting something like me, I guess, but I'm totally abandoned now, so...he likes me well enough. And I'm his only, right now."

Ciel backed away across the floor slowly.

"Absolutely nothing you just said made any sense to me. Who's ' _she'_? How do you become abandoned? What even is abandonment? How did you leave? Leave where?"

Alois became so utterly shocked that he did not respond, mouth simply hanging open.

Ciel pushed himself further away, unsure of the angel, when there was a loud crash from somewhere outside that shook the entire room, shelves wobbling dangerously.

With a final look at the still-shocked Alois, Ciel pushed himself to his feet. "What was that?"

" _What did the humans_ do _to you_?!" Alois shrieked, suddenly capable again of speaking and moving. "You poor, wretched creature, what did they do to make you like this?!"

Ciel backed towards the door.

"I don't know what you mean. I still don't know what you were talking about. And I really don't appreciate being called wretched. Or poor."

Ciel pressed his back against the door, hand on the knob. Alois began to pace, tense and shaking.

"They _can't_ have done this to you, they're not-they don't know enough about us, they can't-it must be a survival mechanism, you can't have-to have lost absolutely _everything_ , you must have had something else, maybe you weren't-how did you look like you do?"

"What?"

Ciel's wings tightened against his spine, holding close as he prepared to flee. Alois flapped his hands dramatically in a gesture towards Ciel.

"The way you look now, all of that, how did you make it so?"

"I-I still don't know what you mean. The humans made the dress and stabbed my eye-"

"-No, no, no, you! How did you make _you_? Your body, your shape, your form!"

"Please, Alois, there's so much you're saying, I don't know what any of it means! Slow down!"

The other angel stepped within a meter of Ciel, and he tensed dangerously. Alois saw the fear, the confusion, and slowed his pacing.

"You and I need to sit down and have a long talk."

"If that means you'll answer my questions, gladly!"

There was another resounding crash from outside, and Ciel shied away from the door.

Alois rolled his eyes and pulled the door open with no small amount of effort. It opened into a parlor with lit globes of light across the walls and several overstuffed chairs, love seats, and settees. Not at all the hallway that had been there before.

Alois stalked into the room unperturbed and tossed himself into a chair, wings up carefully. There was yet another crash from somewhere through the walls, and he groaned, irritated.

"Don't worry. If they keep fighting like they are, we have hours."


	12. Chapter 12

"Is that the demons? Are they really fighting?"

"'Course they are. Come on, did you really think Sebastian was _normal_ for a demon? The others can barely stand him."

There was a sound like a piece of furniture being thrown to the ground.

"I imagine no demon can stand another for an extended period of time. Is this sort of thing normal?"

"What 'sort of thing', demons hating each other or fighting?"

"Both, I suppose."

Ciel had turned to inspecting the room, still unsure of how they had managed to get to it. The walls had some kind of gilded floral pattern that reflected the scant light dully, plants Ciel did not recognize. There was a mirror along the entirety of the wall across the door, and Ciel suddenly found himself staring into his reflection.

He was startled by his own appearance.

His eyes were so _blue_ , his hair so smokey, but his skin, his dress, his wings, so pale, he was entirely washed with white. From the distance he stood from the mirror, he could only see the blue of one eye and the silvery slate of his hair, which fell over most of his face.

Alois watched in silence as Ciel crossed the room, never breaking focus from his reflection.

The little welt on his face had disappeared, but his hands were covered with red, angry marks from Alois' hands, and they stung as he reached up to brush his hair out of his eye.

Though it no longer hurt, there were raised lines of scars across the surface of his eye and his iris was stained, explaining the blurred parts of his vision succinctly. Ciel noticed the softness of his face and lips and the hardness to his brow, surely, but his eye was so startling that he hardly paid mind to anything else.

"This is the first time you're seeing yourself, huh?" Alois asked quietly, standing at his shoulder.

Ciel nodded, mouth slightly open.

"Les cicatrices...the _scars_...how...how are they so healed? It was only-only...how long have I been here?"

Careful to not touch exposed skin, Alois rested his hand on Ciel's shoulder.

"That's not how it works down here. Time isn't real, but our bodies are. It's the opposite of what it is on high, huh?"

Ciel didn't respond. His eyes welled with tears. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"I-I don't know. I don't know!"

Ciel wiped his face roughly, pulling out of Alois' grasp. He turned away from the mirror stiffly, not looking at Alois. He crossed his arms tightly across his chest, head down. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. "What did you mean, that's not how it works down here?"

"...when you're injured, or exhausted, your body needs to sleep. That's when you'll regenerate. Time has nothing to do with how well you heal; how deeply you sleep does. If you were anything like me, you probably arrived here already sleeping. Most sacrifices do; it's the only way the soul can survive the journey. The continued regeneration is the only thing that keeps us alive, at least us humanoid creatures."

"Other things can be sacrificed?"

"'Course, all the time. Sebastian hasn't shown you his goats yet? He's particularly fond of them. Like I said, he's kinda weird."

"You keep saying that, but how do you know? How can you know what's 'normal' from a demon?"

Alois made to speak, but stalled. He pouted, upset at having been called out.

"Well, he _is_ weird. He's still pure, even though he's been here almost since the beginning. Literally the _only_ demon in hell who hasn't totally fallen. Talk about uptight." Alois ruffled his wings and turned around, making to walk back to the chairs in the center of the room.

"What do you mean when you talk about losing purity? There's only creatures who are pure or impure, and demons are impure. Humans are impure by the nature of humanity, and angels are fully pure."

"Uh, Sebastian could touch you. And, look at me, Ciel. I'm an angel; do I really look pure? It's not so black and white."

Alois stuck his tongue out again and lowered his eyelids seductively. Ciel stepped back, eyes wide, brow offended, and blush rising to his cheeks. "Purity is a measure of an individual, not by nature. A pure soul is an uncorrupted soul; an impure soul is corrupted."

"So you're saying _your_ soul is corrupt?"

"Of course it is. I've given in to sin; you will in your own time, I'm sure, and you'll become corrupted, too. You'll no longer care for modesty, or the affairs of humans, or any duty once given to you. It's a relief, really. Besides, you act like all angels were pinnacles of sainthood because they were pure; I saw hundreds more orgies on high than I have down here."

Alois laughed as Ciel made a disgusted sound and twitched further upright.

"You're lying to me. You have been this whole time, haven't you?"

"Oh, I'm as serious as death itself. Most demons can't stand each other; why do you think so many brides are sent here? And as for anything else, do you have an explanation you trust more? I'm just telling you what I know to be true."

Alois stretched out on a settee, rolling around slightly as he tried to get comfortable. Ciel sat softly in a chair not far away, stretching his wings above the back of the chair.

"So what is a bride supposed to do, down here? You can't be just a toy,"

"Oh, yes, I can be, and you are too, now. Demons can't stand each other, but even so, it gets lonely down here. Though she'd never approve of it, humans take the best of themselves and any angels they can get their hands on, and dress us all up, and send us down here to keep their demons company. I guess they think that we distract them, so the humans aren't punished so terribly when they get here. It's really not so bad; most demons have these individual pissing matches, like, they have to be better than any of the demons who do the same job as them, and how many brides they have, and how well they take care of them, it's like a ranking, I guess. Claude-that's my demon- doesn't have any other brides because he ends them if he finds one he likes better, and he constantly has me dressed up, taking me around, showing off. Like I said, all the attention you could ever want."

Ciel leaned back in his seat, red.

"But what happens when he finds someone better? He'll end you, too."

Alois opened his eyes and looked at Ciel, half angry.

"He won't. He's put me up against nine other brides, all the ones who got sent after me, and he still likes me best."

Alois relaxed his look as Ciel shuddered visibly. His voice began to draw out, and he sat up, leaning closer to Ciel. "It's really too bad that you're still pure...Claude's nice, but I get...bored. And you look like lots of fun. If you weren't pure, I would've asked you the second we got away from those two to fool around with me until they stopped fighting. Woulda been all kinds of fun."

He smiled that same hungry, flirtatious smile, and Ciel twitched even further back in his seat.

What was he supposed to do? He didn't even want this angel to look at him, much less touch him, but he looked like he wanted to put his hands all over Ciel, regardless of how badly he'd burn him!

"I don't want anything like that." Ciel said sharply, crossing his arms.

"Aww, 'course you do! Everyone does to some extent. You'll see, especially with Sebastian. You'll get really lonely, and then you'll get bored, 'cause he never takes you to see anyone, and he'll never touch you, because he just doesn't, and before you know it-"

Alois smiled cruelly, leaning almost into Ciel's lap.

"-it won't burn you to touch me at all."

"Alois!"

A door opened out of the wall and that other demon, Claude, burst through it, adjusting his glasses and looking around the room. Sebastian followed him, arms crossed dangerously, eyes locked onto the angel that was leaning over his bride.

"I thought you were just going for a new light. What are you doing all the way out here?"

"Why did you take Ciel out of my protection? He's not quite like you, and you wouldn't have been able to protect him if anything else came along."

Ciel didn't hear Alois' answer, though he scrambled to get away from Ciel. He was staring in horror at Claude.

His left horn had been broken off, the remaining stump smoldering on his head.

Sebastian crossed the room and said something to Ciel, but he didn't register, unable to take his eyes off the wound.

"Did...did you do that?"

"Ciel…"

Ciel stood suddenly, backing away. Alois groaned.

"You like to do that, huh?"

Claude hushed him and Alois wrapped himself around Claude's waist, watching the rest in silence.

"There's a lot going on that you don't understand, Ciel, but this space isn't safe for you. Let's take you back to the room with the books, alright?"

Ciel looked to Claude again, startled by the intense glare he received, and nodded quickly.

Sebastian placed his hand against Ciel's shoulder gently, and as he led past the creatures, Alois winked quickly.

Ciel shuddered, and let Sebastian close the door behind them without looking back.


	13. Chapter 13

"What happened? How did you..?"

Sebastian didn't respond right away. He had let go of Ciel almost as soon as the door closed behind them, entering into a very thin hallway, with curtains hanging where Ciel assumed doors were.

"How did he get you this far out here? Goodness, did you not feel anything?"

"What?"

Sebastian pulled a curtain open and closed it just as quickly.

"You should've felt something painful in your chest when you left my protection. Brides are bound to their demons through the marriage of their souls."

"I never married you, and I never will, so I'll assume I have no binding to you to even have protection to leave."

Sebastian's mouth tightened as Ciel fell back to his previous standoffish attitude.

"You ought to be more careful, _pinnacula_. There are very few demons who would be even remotely polite to you if they found you alone, and none of them would care if they burned you."

"What did you call me?"

Sebastian opened another curtain and seemed pleased with the room it led into, stepping through the doorway.

"Nothing of consequence. Come on."

Ciel followed him into a cavernous space like a greenhouse, but completely devoid of light.

There were thin, winding paths made of stone weaving through the overwhelming amount of plants, which seemed to have no order to their arrangement, and no fragrance Ciel could immediately detect. The space smelled almost musty, really.

Sebastian paused as the door clicked shut, attentively listening and watching what little space in the room he could see. Looking up, Ciel saw that there was, indeed, a roof to this space, and it really did appear to be a huge greenhouse.

Sebastian made a deep sound in his throat, and Ciel

shied away.

"Stay close. Someone's in here."

Before Ciel could protest or run, Sebastian swept him up and balanced him against his chest, ignoring Ciel's squawk of surprise and anger.

"Put me down!"

" _Shh."_

Sebastian adjusted one of his arms so that Ciel's wings were not crushed against his back, but otherwise did not follow through on Ciel's demand. He picked a path to his left, and began to walk down it leisurely, as if it was an everyday occurrence to be carrying an angel, of whom at least one third of his weight was constituted of a dress.

Ciel began to feel oppressed as the plants closed in. How could plants be so intimidating? Yet, he found himself carefully listening, head jerking to face anything that swished a little too closely, sliding a hand up to grab onto Sebastian's shoulder. A stray leaf brushed against Ciel's cheek, and as he swatted it away, found that it was made of fabric.

What kind of place was this?

The fabric plants began to swish louder, as if pushed by a nonexistent wind, and as Sebastian tightened his grip on Ciel, a figure stumbled out into the path before them.

Ciel gave a cry, but the other figure screamed far louder.

It was a young man with yellowy blond hair that was clipped back by a few red clips, and as soon as he got a full look at Sebastian, stopped screaming.

"Oh, Sebastian! Y-you scared me...a lot!"

"Finny. I could say the same."

Sebastian let Ciel down gently, unthreatened by the creature before him. The human he'd called Finny looked Ciel over with surprise.

"Well, hello! You must be new. I can't say I'm glad you're here in this place, but I'm glad you have good company like us!"

"Uhm...thank you..? Who are you?"

Finny smiled down at Ciel, and Ciel suddenly felt remarkably small; everyone he'd come in contact with was at least a little taller than him.

"Name's Finny. I tend to the plants and animals around here when mister Sebastian can't."

"And you do an excellent job." Sebastian affirmed, prompting the blond human to flush proudly and rub at the back of his neck.

"Thank you, but it's really the least I could do. What, uh, what do you do? Who're you?"

"Uh…" Ciel was getting rather tired of explaining this. "...I'm not totally sure of who I am."

"Yes, and, as you know, Finny, we can't pass him on until he knows who he was." Sebastian crossed his arms, glancing down at Ciel out of the corner of his eye. If he was hoping Ciel wouldn't notice, he failed.

Finny held his arms behind his back, and Ciel found himself thankful that he hadn't tried to touch him yet.

"Oh, don't worry, it'll come to you soon enough! It only took me a few good hours of rest, and it all came back. And you'll find something that makes you satisfied around here. It may be simple, but you'll see. You can be really happy, down here. I am, at least."

"I...I don't know what you mean."

Sebastian began to lose interest in the conversation, pulling a pocketwatch out and checking it.

"Oh, I was sacrificed to mister Sebastian, too. He doesn't keep brides; he gives anyone who was sacrificed to him another purpose. Right, Sebastian?"

"Uh, yes." Sebastian closed his watch, and Ciel wondered how he was reading time if it wasn't real in this awful place.

"I'm a gardener!" Finny straightened proudly.

"These plants are fabricated, though, aren't they?"

"Of course they are, but so is everything else down here. They really do grow, though. Look!"

As he spoke, Finny reached near Ciel and cut a leaf off of a plant. He stepped closer to Ciel and used the thinner end of his shears to slice it down the center. The fabric was wet inside, with veins visibly spreading through it, a gel-like substance stuck to them, just like a real leaf. "It's really fascinating, look!"

Finny reached out gently and took Ciel's hand, trying to guide him to touch the inside of the leaf.

Ciel gave a yelp as his skin sizzled in contact with Finny, and jerked it away. He backed against Sebastian, who grabbed onto his shoulders and held his still-searing hand.

"I-I-"

"-I'm so sorry! I didn't know!" Finny jerked away, dropping the leaf parts and sheathing his garden clippers.

"It's okay, I-I just-I didn't think you were-you'd be-"

"-Oh…" Finny dropped his eyes. Ciel sucked in a deep breath, pulling away from Sebastian as he calmed down. "...well, though I've long since reformed, I'm afraid that once a being has become impure, they can't really ever be purified again. No matter how they change. I'm sorry."

Ciel backed away, holding his hands close to his chest. He looked from Finny to Sebastian, who seemed just as forlorn as Finny.

"I'm afraid we've overwhelmed you, far more than I ever intended to." Sebastian pulled his waistcoat straight on his frame, brushing a few stray locks of hair back into place. "And it's far past time to get you somewhere safe."

Ciel glowered at Sebastian uncertainly, but stepped towards him anyway.

"This is hell. There is nowhere safe."

Finny gave Sebastian a quick salute and disappeared into the flora without another word. Sebastian watched him go with a strange, placid sort of look on his face.

"It really is a shame. If anyone ever deserved redemption, it'd be that boy. I don't even know the half of what he's been through, but I do know that much."

"What do you mean? What happened?"

"Humans do terrible things to one another. If you remember nothing else, remember that. I'll say with certainty that he never deserved half of what he got. He was at the point that being sent here was the kindest thing that could've happened to him."

With that cryptic message, Sebastian turned towards another stone path, and waited for Ciel to go down it first.

It led rather abruptly to a huge door that seemed to be made of metal, locked from the inside and covered with dents that seemed to have been caused by something on the other side.

Sebastian placed a hand on the lock and made a quick, disgusted face.

"Stay close, just in case."

He held onto Ciel's shoulder with his other hand, and shoved the door with what seemed to be a great deal of might. It practically screamed as it opened, and Sebastian held Ciel tightly as he tried to jerk away out of reflex.

The next room was dark, very dark, and every sound echoed tenfold its original volume. The only source of light seemed to be something at the bottom of a bowllike shape in the center of the room. The room sank into a limpid pool of what appeared to be water, and Ciel could not see the edge of the pool. The light at the center pulsated as Ciel drew closer.

Sebastian heard the little angel's wings drag across the stone flooring as he reached the next door, and turned back just in time to see Ciel reach the edge of the water.

"Ciel?"

The angel was trapped in some kind of trance, one hand pressed to his chest, the other reaching out, staring at the bottom of the pool. The water seemed to swirl excitedly as the creature leaned towards it. He stepped out suddenly, and plunged into the water.

" _Ciel!"_

As Sebastian rushed towards where his bride had crossed through the water, he felt it pulling at him, too, but more than that he felt the eminent danger.

The pool was almost five times deeper than Sebastian originally had thought, and Ciel seemed to be sinking five times faster than he should have been.

Sebastian fell to his knees, and almost hesitated before diving down after the angel.


	14. Chapter 14

As soon as Sebastian submerged himself in the fluid, he knew with certainty that it was just water; whatever the light at the bottom of the pool was was causing the trouble. A sound was being emitted, too, soft and mid-toned, like a hum. The water was remarkably warm, and felt thin, thinner than water should be.

Ciel's eyes were open as he fell, but they were unfocused and docile, his hair floating ethereally around his face.

Sebastian closed his hands around the angel's thin waist, and there was a scream from somewhere in the water. It was an angry, warning scream, and the light that had previously been sort of bluish became starkly red.

 _Why does every creature want my Ciel?_ Sebastian wondered. Was this space even a creature?

It didn't matter. He would be free of it soon.

He broke the surface of the pool again, dragging the angel with him, who had lost consciousness upon surfacing. The dress and Ciel's wings had taken on enough water to nearly double the small angel's weight, and Sebastian had to hoist Ciel's arms around his neck so he could pull the limp body away, laying it softly on the ground.

Ciel breathed carefully, as if asleep.

As Sebastian watched, breathing heavily and dropping next to Ciel, the angel's injured hands paled, and the burns disappeared. The water dripping off their bodies created a symphony in the room, drowning out any other sound, and as the water rushed back towards the pool, Sebastian was aware of the light growing brighter.

He turned.

Rising out of the water was a creature with eyes glowing red, her dark hair pulled back, her breasts dripping with water that formed out of nowhere that Sebastian assumed was supposed to be erotic.

He simply found it to be confusing to watch.

The creature taking the form of a waterlogged woman stood upright waist-high in the water, though there was nothing to support her, and reached an arm out, pointing to Ciel.

"Give me the angel. I want her."

"No!"

Sebastian answered more fiercely than he'd intended to. The beast of a woman frowned.

"You bring a creature so pure to my doorstep, with no intention to keep her for yourself, and you won't pass her on to someone who will gladly look after her?"

"You don't want to look after- _Ciel_ -you're just looking for a plaything!"

"It's the same thing, and what a _lovely_ plaything she will be…"

The beast purred as she came to the edge of her pool. Her eyes, which had been glowing red, slowly cooled, back to blue. She licked her lips dangerously, reaching for Ciel's skirt.

Sebastian felt a sudden shock of adrenaline, and he knew he had the power to take the woman's hand off for even _attempting_ to touch what belonged to him.

He bit back the sudden reaction, however, and instead swiftly gathered Ciel in his arms. The beast's eyes went red again, and she dragged herself out of the pool to her hips. A good part of her leg was missing entirely, with no prosthetic to take its place. "She came to me; she was willing to stay!"

The beast reached for Ciel again, and though Ciel was well out of the woman's grasp, evoked a weak and pained cry from the angel. Sebastian stepped away, holding Ciel closer to his chest, who quieted as soon as the beast shifted her attention.

"I have neither time nor patience for this. You will cease your hold on Ciel this instant."

The beast purred again, a low growl of danger this time, and pulled herself to her knees out of her pool. Ciel began to convulse in Sebastian's arms, and hacked out a mouthful of water. The beast kept her glare locked onto the angel, and Sebastian found that he could not move either.

"Give me the angel." She repeated.

Sebastian's eyes began to burn, bloodied red.

"Let go of us."

The woman snarled. Her nails gouged into the stone, and her hair, which had previously been in a smooth bun, became somehow frayed.

She knew that her will could not compare to Sebastian's, but he saw it in her eyes. She was starving, and depraved, and as utterly alone as any wretched creature confined to hell. "You are lonely; whatever purpose you were given is now obsolete. You are afraid of what will happen if you are left alone with yourself for too long."

The beast's glare faltered.

"Do you speak of me, or of yourself to me?"

In the few seconds that her hold was loosened, Sebastian slashed out. Still holding Ciel, but moving so quickly that the woman had no time to react, he drove his nails into her throat, and ripped a chunk of it out.

She couldn't even scream with her throat so damaged, and the room screamed instead, blood polluting her pool as she disappeared within it. The room trembled and the bloody water was thrown out of the pool, soaking the rest of the space, until it all quieted suddenly.

In the murky water, a hand floated just below the surface.

Sebastian let his breath out, unaware that he was holding it in, and dropped the mass of flesh and muscle he'd been holding.

He was completely shocked to find that it had not burned him.

Stiffly, quickly, unsure of how else to react, he swept through another door in the room.

It opened into his own throne room, and he slammed the door behind him, willing it to disappear as the room appeared, and brushed his hair back, letting out another shocked breath.

 _Why had he done that?!_

What had possessed him so suddenly and so completely that he lost all his self-restraint?

He looked down at his answer, and nearly dropped Ciel.

The hair that had previously been closely trimmed fell in long ringlets, hanging over Sebastian's arm and reaching their owner's waist. The previously flat-chested bodice had been filled out with proportional breasts, and the lips that were previously pale had a slightly pinkish tint to them. The eyelashes were still as long and dainty as ever, the body still bearing the same widely curved hips and thin waist it always had, the skin still as pale as parchment, the wings still as white as snow, yet the small changes to appearance seemed completely jarring.

Never before had Sebastian seen a creature that had jumped so quickly in appearance, nor so severely; the process by which he had lost his own wings and grown his horns was stretched over human decades, losing only a handful of oily, dark feathers a day and his virgin horns only growing an inch a month, at most. And those were simply appendages, not the complete structure of the body.

Was it the _complete_ structure?

As he thought it, he could sense the pedestal forming in the center of the room, but stopped it.

It seemed horribly inappropriate to place Ciel on a sacrificing tablet after very nearly being unwillingly sacrificed a second time.

Sebastian held Ciel closer to his chest, and raised his hand.

With it, a staircase rose to the true safety of his exclusive chambers, and Sebastian took his stairs with a shaking precaution, holding the rail that was only ever for show before tightly.


	15. Chapter 15

A young woman tripped over her skirt, nearly spilling, but she recovered in enough time to keep running.

The rain was torrenting down, all around her, and she could no longer tell which sounds were caused by that rain and which ones were caused by the man chasing her.

It didn't matter; he was nearly on her heels the last time she looked back, and she was too afraid to do it again.

Ahead, the streetlights went out as she left the center of the city, and she scattered into the darkness, sliding into a thin alleyway and praying that the rain and lack of light had blinded her pursuer just enough to lose her.

She realized, too late, that she had caged herself.

The alleyway did not let out, simply coming to an end at a brick wall, and as she turned back, swiping strands of hair from her eyes, the man rounded the corner.

She screamed, but it did not matter.

Nobody came. Nobody ever came.

The man laughed. He was wearing some kind of uniform, but he was no authority, or at least none worthy of a uniform.

She screamed, as loudly as she could for as long as she could, until her head spun and her voice was raw.

The man had long since stopped laughing; he was angry, now, and as his hands closed around the girl's throat, he snarled in a language she barely spoke,

"La ferme."

So she did. She shut up and she bit down on her tongue, and he seemed pleased with her obedience.

He herded her backwards, against the brick of the wall that trapped her, and silently, the girl began to pray.

She did not pray for herself; she prayed for her grandmother, without whom she would be alone, and she prayed for the girls who could not scream. She prayed that the man would not cut her dress, because it was the only one she had, and she prayed that he would let go of her throat.

It began to get darker as the man throttled her harder, doing a great many other wicked things to her, but she scarcely registered it anymore.

She prayed that it would be over soon, and it was, and as he dropped her and walked away, she prayed that it was only blood running down her legs, and that she would not become pregnant.

She prayed that she would never have to see another man again.

The angel looked down at the girl from the roof of the building that made the back wall of the alley.

The angel had heard her prayers, and as the man's footsteps faded away, jumped.

The angel landed with hardly a sound, and the girl did not stir, not until there was a hand on her cheek, and she looked up to see a young girl with gray hair and blue eyes and a kind, understanding gaze.

The angel appeared to her as what she needed to see, and what she needed to see was that which was right before her, a gentle girl with hair as long as her own, though this girl's was free, blowing in the wind and not at all affected by the rain or cold, her dress white and clean and reaching to just below her knees, her feet bare, and her smell like the dried flowers the human girl's mother had once collected. The girl saw herself so much in the angel that she hardly noticed her wings, stretching above them to create an umbrella.

She did not say anything. She did not need to, and she couldn't have, anyway.

The angel was there for her. That was all that mattered.

The girl reached up and held the angel's arms, and the angel pulled her to her feet. The girl stumbled, and the angel wrapped her arm around her waist. She did not attempt to lift the young woman.

The angel had to look up to see the girl's face, and saw that she was very nearly twenty; hardly a girl at all. The angel had the figure of a child yet, no older than fourteen, but she did her best to keep this woman standing, who acted almost as if she knew where to go better than the angel.

They left the alley behind, dawn visible at the very edges of the city buildings, and in that faint light, as workers around them moved to douse the street lamps, a woman in red waited.

She was smoking, and looked quite relaxed. She put out her cigarette as they drew closer, crushing it under her heel, and extended her hands to the girl.

Eagerly, she collapsed into the woman's arms, who caught her with a gentle sigh. The woman looked over the human's shoulder at the angel, not so much as raising a brow at the long hair, which the angel was pulling away from her face.

The woman spoke.

"Tu as beaucoup à faire, nièce."

With a slight startle, the angel bowed, extending her wings.

"Oui, Madame. À plus tard."

As the angel took a running start, climbed a light post, and took off into the air, the woman smiled. She held the human close to her chest.

There was no 'later' at which to be seen.

Their work never ended.

Ciel opened her eyes. Her hair felt damp.

She remembered hearing someone crying, a woman, and she remembered water.

Where were her clothes? She was fairly certain she'd been wearing quite a few layers, but could not feel anything directly against her body.

There was a layer of something that felt like stiff fabric against her, and she was laying on her back. Staring up at the inside of a covered four-posted bed, heard a relieved sigh from somewhere very near her right ankle.

Ciel jerked upright with a gasp.

A large towel had been laid over her like a blanket, and it clung to her shoulders.

That demon was standing at the foot of the bed, leaning against the post, and seemed weary.

"You had been sleeping for a very long time. I almost feared you wouldn't wake up again." He said, rubbing at one of his eyes. He looked quite frazzled, and as Ciel slowly took in their surroundings, noticed a chair pulled up to the side of the bed, near to Ciel's shoulder. There were several copies of what looked like the same book open to different pages around the room, a few of varying sizes that all looked anatomical, even a few loose pages strewn across the floor. A fire was roaring in its place, and Sebastian seemed to have lost his tailcoat. He was wearing a white button shirt under a dark gray vest, both of which were wrinkled and seemed strained.

Ciel shifted her wings above her shoulders, reaching back so she could pull her hair forward. It seemed like Sebastian had tried to brush out some of the moisture, but her hair was too long for whatever brush he'd used. There were bristles broken off in her hair, and as she pulled it over her shoulder to pick them out, Sebastian leaned forward until he was sitting at the foot of the bed.

"What happened?"

Her towel slid forward and fell, puddling at her waist, and she ignored it. The room was plenty warm.

Sebastian cleared his throat.

"You were lured in by another demon. She made you jump into a pool of water, probably to try to drown you, and when you came out, you...well, I think the way you look now is the way the humans saw you when they sacrificed you."

Ciel looked down at herself briefly, just enough to confirm that her body _was_ quite different from the way she had remembered it being. She should have been more surprised, maybe, but it didn't mean much to her. Nothing about her identity had changed, only the way it was perceived.

"What happened after that?"

Sebastian scratched at the back of his neck.

"You were sleeping for a good while, and I feared that you might have caught hypothermia, so...I did what I knew how to."

"This isn't the same room as before."

"No, but it's similar. I moved you into a smaller room, where the bed is closer to the fireplace."

Sebastian stood again, and walked around the side of the bed. He picked up an open book and placed it in Ciel's lap wordlessly.

Ciel looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, confused at what she perceived to be a sudden shift in his demeanor.

Sebastian looked intently away.

Ciel brushed her hair away from her face and inspected the book.

It was opened to an illustration on both pages of what looked like fraternal twins. One had hair cascading almost to her ankles, dainty wrists crossed over her breasts and long eyelashes kissing her cheeks, while the other had hair cut short with a thick beard, his broad shoulders holding up a proud jaw. Each had a small description underneath, and a smaller illustration of the back of each specimen. At the very base of their outstretched wings, there were small marks that looked almost like circular scars.

"I can't read Latin."

"It is a series of illustrations on the study of a class of angels. They're the Carriers; there were only four, last I knew, and they are capable of displaying all traits of all genders at the drop of a hat. They are among the most powerful beings on high, capable of traversing all plains freely."

Sebastian dropped his hand to Ciel's back, and reached under one of her wings. His fingertips pressed against the base of her left wing, and as she gave an indignant yelp at being touched without permission, froze.

Ciel went stiff for a moment, and upon regaining control, found that his hair was again short, his chest again flat. He shuddered, and slapped Sebastian's hand away.

"What did you do? What does that mean?"

Sebastian looked down at Ciel for a moment, before lifting his head away again and speaking.

"It means that you, _pinnacula_ , are far more powerful than I could've anticipated, and are likely the spawn of at least one of the Carriers."

Ciel looked again to the illustrations, and traced the woman's jaw with a fingertip.

"Who are the Carriers?"

"The humans call them the Horsemen. Of course, that's not correct; they are divine beings. The humans call them by what follows them; War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. They are the equalizers of humanity."

Ciel did not look up. His brow deepened, and he rubbed at his right temple.

"These are supposed to be of Famine?"

He gestured to the open page.

Sebastian turned slowly, trying very hard to conceal his surprise.

"...yes."

"Well, they're not correct. Her jaw is less square, and she curls her hair; all the time, no matter what."

Sebastian knelt down slowly, making himself eye level with Ciel.

"...how do you know that?"

Ciel's bare shoulders flushed with his face.

"I used to hold her chin, and brush away the stray hair around her hairline. She never let anyone cut it to a reasonable length. It drove me crazy!"

"No...I meant…Ciel, you've remembered something."

The angel's head jerked up, and he made bewildered eye contact with the demon.

He bit his lip to keep his mouth from falling open, but his hands started to shake anyway.

"I...I did…"

"Is there anything else? Anything at all?"

"I...uhm...it's...there's…"

Ciel rubbed at his temple, harder, but it was clear that nothing else was going to come to him. He gave an angry scowl, but he could see nothing more. "...Her laugh was like windchimes, and her eyes were a brilliant green, but she was so _draining_ to be around, so high-maintenance…but so kind, too, sort of...unaware of what she was doing...I…"

Cirl's voice cracked to little more than a squeak. "I can't remember _where_ that was….or even when that was..!"

He gave a angry sound, and Sebastian brushed Ciel's hair aside gently. Ciel stiffened, out of fright or discomfort or both Sebastian did not know.

"Could she have been your mother?"

Sebastian let his eyes wander over the rest of Ciel's face, determined not to let a single detail of his expression escape scrutiny.

"...I...I don't know...I don't think so, but...I-I don't know!"

Warily, Ciel pushed Sebastian's hand away. Why was the demon suddenly so gentle? Ciel's wings pulled around his shoulders, and Sebastian took in a sharp breath, shaking himself. He stood, and his eyes fell back to their previous flattened, bored look, though he still seemed flustered.

He crossed his arms and pulled his shirt taught. Sebastian cleared his throat a final time.

"I've fallen behind in my work. Stay here and rest. Look at those illustrations; go ahead and write down any discrepancies. It might help...I don't know."

Ciel pushed the book off his lap and tossed the towel away, standing and stretching.

"Where are my clothes?"

Sebastian had already turned away, and gestured to the chair in the corner behind the fireplace.

He shut the door roughly, startling the angel.

Sebastian pressed his shoulders against the other side of the door. He breathed carefully, and ran his hand through his hair.

Why was his face so hot?

Why was his stomach fluttering?

He shook himself roughly, and stalked away from the door.


	16. Chapter 16

Ciel watched the door, confused. Sebastian's mood seemed to shift as quickly as blinking. Had he done something wrong?

Ciel looked around the room.

There was an armoire behind the door, but it was empty, and there was the chair next to the bed, over which Ciel discovered Sebastian's coat. How long had he sat in that chair, watching over Ciel?

The other chair behind the fireplace had Ciel's clothes draped over it. They were still mostly wet; Ciel found only a pair of puffy shorts and a strange short dress that were even remotely dry enough to wear. Famine would probably have known the names of these pieces, Ciel thought as he pulled the dress over his head, carefully stretching his wings out the loose back. She had loved human fashion, he remembered. How had he known that? How could he possibly just _know_ such things without remembering where they came from?

There was a vanity next to the opposite side of the bed, with a small ball of light resting on a flat nest of what looked like marble on its surface. The comb with all the pearls in it was lying there, too, and Ciel approached the vanity carefully, tucking himself into the short, cushioned stool before it.

The mirror reflected the room very dimly, polished though it was, and Ciel could hardly see himself. He could only just make out his outline, which seemed similar to how he remembered it.

He shuddered. Something about the vanity was eerie, sort of unsettling, and he stood again.

Ciel pulled the chair with the wet clothes on it closer to the fire, spreading them out, pleased with how quickly they seemed to warm. If his clothes were still so wet, Ciel thought, he couldn't have been asleep for too long. But, as he was constantly being reminded, time wasn't real down here. There seemed to be only events, and their order.

He crawled back onto the bed, looking again at the illustrations. He traced the feminine face of the subject, and frowned.

He stood up and lifted Sebastian's jacket, shaking the pockets. Nothing. He dropped it again carelessly and pulled open the drawers of the nightstand, stacked high with books. Empty.

He sighed, and brushed his hair back. He did a miniature pirouette, looking around the room, seeing nothing.

He scowled, then, and crossed the bed. Out of ideas, he pulled one of the drawers to the vanity open.

A pencil rolled to the front of the drawer, and Ciel snatched it quickly.

He closed the drawer and leapt over the bed again, scrabbling for one of the books. He flipped through it until he found a blank page at the back of the book, and ripped it out cleanly. He pulled the book back into his lap, and using it as a hard surface, began to sketch.

The pencil seemed to move on its own, and he simply allowed it to use his hand, referring back to the original drawing with the intention of finding discrepancies.

He froze like that, hunched over the paper, and only when he finally finished did he lean back to see the product.

The new drawing, Famine as he thought he had known her, was smiling up at him, big, curly pigtails bouncing off her shoulders. Her teeth were slightly crooked, and her lips were thin, but she smiled cheerily anyway, and her face was properly heart-shaped, with a pointed chin and softer jaw. He scribbled only three letters across the top of it and pushed it aside, wrist cramping.

Ciel flopped forward over his knees, wings stretching off the sides of the bed. He sighed as he stretched, and straightened reluctantly.

He lifted a wing, and actually marveled at it.

How much time had he spent admiring then before? Had he, ever, taken the time to admire them?

His wings were curved elegantly along the shoulder, but the long flight feathers created sharp, refined points along the bottom. They were pristinely white, as he had already come to know, but the white was stark, and cold; there was no ivory tone. It was not as comforting as a softer white.

He wondered what humans must have thought of him.

Did he ever even interact with humans?

He did not know. Ciel could not remember.

He stood, beating his wings once, experimentally.

It was remarkably powerful, far more than he had anticipated, enough to send pages of books flying and enough to lift himself several feet into the air.

He gave a surprised cry, dropping onto the bed.

He sat up with an exhilarated gasp. No, that was _not_ something he would try again, not in a room so small.

He stood, shaking. He stumbled partially back to the vanity, dropping into the seat before it.

Ciel gave another gasp for breath, and his hand closed around the comb on the vanity.

"If I knew who I was, would I even want to go back to being that person?"

He wondered aloud.

The mirror brightened slowly.

Ciel looked up, brow deep.

The metal and glass of the mirror began to vibrate, as sound passed through it.

"That depends. I used to be a prostitute; I would do anything to go back to that rather than being a fucking mirror!"

Ciel screamed.


	17. Chapter 17

Sebastian pulled his shirt straight across his shoulders, and pulled another coat over it.

He looked into his mirror, touching across his cheek. Was he still red?

He looked around his room, and back to the vanity.

One of Ciel's feathers was lying on it, in front of a small metal tub of polish.

"Something on your mind, sir?"

His mirror asked, brightening as it spoke.

He shook his head quickly, with a patched-on smile.

"Not at all."

"You can't lie to me-there's a wrinkle on your left shoulder, sweetie-I've been around almost since you came down!"

Sebastian's smile fell. He fixed the wrinkled fabric, but did not answer. The grandfatherly voice coming from his mirror gave a little sound, like a pout. Sebastian looked back up, caving in.

"The humans sacrificed an angel, but he doesn't remember who he was."

"And you can't get rid of him?"

"...it's not just that. He's...very powerful. If the humans managed to not only drag him from sanctity, but also corrupt his memories, I fear that there's something going on above that I can't help with."

"Oh, so it's not the bride that's worrying you?"

"Well...no, not quite, but-"

"-Oh, Sebastian, sir, you really are a terrible liar to me. What's he like?"

Sebastian stared at the mirror, seeing only his own eyes.

He wondered, often, what the man inside his mirror had once looked like, but he never asked.

"He's...quick-witted. And, hmph, stubborn. And confrontational. And demanding. And spiteful. And distrusting. And rude. And sarcastic. And clever...very clever. And...wise. Though he doesn't recognize it. And gentle, in the way he moves...graceful. And soft...inside. He's all rough edges on contact, but there is a softness to him, inside. A kindness. And his eyes are glassy…curious. And wise, but inside his head...he's empty. It's not that he doesn't think-he thinks so much-he's just...missing important pieces."

"Sounds like you've found yourself a porcelain doll, sir!"

Sebastian smiled before he could help it.

"Such a lovely one. But I would be hurt if he were just to be placed on a shelf. He's meant to see better things than Hell, I just know…he's meant for something better."

"You know...the way you speak of him...does he, maybe remind you of..?"

"No."

Sebastian snapped, quickly, angrily.

He took a careful breath. "No. Nobody could ever-it's not the same. He's not -I'll never -He isn't - Nobody is."

Sebastian crossed his arms, and turned away from the mirror.

"I'm sorry, sir." The mirror mourned. "I did not mean to upset you, but you can't blame an old man for holding out hope, you know."

"I do know." Sebastian sighed, though he still did not turn. "And I do not blame you. Just know this; there is nothing like that for me; there never was, and I don't need one. I'm just fine."

"Just fine, though you refuse to sleep until you absolutely cannot continue, because you can't sleep alone? Just fine, though you often never speak unless spoken to, though your mind is full of thoughts? Just fine, though I hear you cry out through these walls of your domain? You may say whatever you like, but I know you, Sebastian; you are lonely. And you can't keep punishing yourself forever."

The demon turned around again, slowly.

"I'm not punishi-"

"-You may say that, but I know the truth. Sir, you are yet pure; there is nothing you have done so deserving of a punishment like what you've given yourself."

Sebastian did not answer. He looked at his reflection for a moment more, and left.

He checked his pocketwatch as he closed the door to his room. A small key was lying inside where hands should have been, and he withdrew it, closing the watch and pocketing it again. As he opened a stairway heading down, he brushed through his hair with a hand idly. Something caught against his glove, and as he pulled it away, found that a flake of a shiny and brittle substance had caught on his glove and broken away from the rest.

Sebastian groaned. He knew he needed to take better care of his horns, but he could no longer deny that they needed extra attention.

They'd become like Claude's if he wasn't careful, he thought, and anyone could just reach up and snap them off.

It was just stress, he thought, and he immediately blamed the angel.

How bad had the angels gotten, that even the youngest of them had so little modesty?

 _No,_ Sebastian thought, _it's not the angels that have changed, is it? It's me_.

And he was correct. Though he could hardly remember being on high, he did remember that, just like the other angels, his body was little more than a concept for the humans to gaze upon, for what he really was would have scared them out of their minds. No angel had any want for warmth provided by body coverings, and even the angels who regularly traversed the earth wore just enough so that the humans did not think of them as fairies or hallucinations or any other number of things the humans had invented to explain the world they didn't yet understand. Their bodies were like sculptures that moved, having been made in Her design and then given life, but those bodies meant nothing.

So why was Ciel's so jarring so Sebastian?

The easy answer was because it changed so quickly and easily, and Sebastian didn't understand how it could.

The honest answer, however, was so much more complicated that Sebastian didn't even know where to begin.

Part of it was because he was beautiful, Sebastian knew immediately. His body, in any form, was built of golden proportions and the lack of height gave him a sort of cuteness, and his skin was unscarred, unblemished, essentially unharmed, and Sebastian felt some kind of need to protect a being so untouched by the outside world. But he had seen that beauty even in just the angel's face; maybe that was why it wouldn't leave his head.

Part of it could have been because it'd been so long since he had seen any being in any manner of intimacy.

He felt a need, a lust, to just _touch_ the angel, and it frightened him.

Part of it could have been his own desperation; Sebastian readily admitted that this was the first sacrifice in a _long_ time that had sparked any kind of interest in him, and it was pushing him to obsession. That obsession could just as easily have been lust, the need to have that which he could not.

Was he falling?

He snarled loudly, slamming his hand against the wall.

Not willing to entertain _that_ thought any further, he forced himself to go downstairs.

They let out at a single doorway, with a plain handle.

He inserted the new key, and the door swung in with a click. He forced his own thoughts to the back of his mind and stepped inside.

He had work to do, and he had put it off for long enough.

He closed the door behind himself as he looked at the room given to him.

The room as it would have been when the soul inside had died.

He was standing in the doorway to a pub, dirty, low-ceiling and dark, the stench of alcohol confused with the smell of rotting wood.

At the farthest end of the bar, a man was curled around his drink, head down, hunched close over his stool.

Anyone else who might have been in the room was gone, but Sebastian thought he could still hear the ghosts of the shouts that had been a fight outside and the laugh of a woman standing on one of the tables and the coos of the men that had crowded her.

Humanity disgusted him.

Sebastian shuddered, and relaxed his hands. As he did so, his form became far less of the marble sculpture of an angel, much more of the vague terror of a demon.

Of course, _he_ hadn't changed at all, just the way the man would perceive him.

He began to move down the bar, lifting a paper that had been left under a glass.

"Jakob Nugent."

He began, and the man suddenly startled with a snuff, as if he had been asleep. Sebastian did not pause as he screamed at whatever monstrosity he saw the demon as, though Sebastian was pretty sure he just looked like a condensed cloud of smoke with a voice. "Do you know where you are?"

The man fell silent as the demon spoke over the scream, and looked about himself. He spoke slowly, but did not try to stand.

"...O'Reilly's…least, thasswhere I was."

"Incorrect, I'm afraid."

Sebastian lifted his hand, though he knew the man saw nothing, and the pub fell away into blackness. The room simply became a void, and the man cursed as the stool under him disappeared, and he fell to the ground. Sebastian began to turn the paper boredly, having already read everything on it. "You're in Hell. I am your personal devil. Do you know why you're here?"

The man stood, quickly, as his drunken stupor had worn off as soon as the illusion of life had.

"Damn, I was hoping for one more drink before makin' my way to ye bastards."

The man gathered his hands into fists with glee in his eyes.

He got a kick out of violence, certainly.

"Tsk, tsk. That'll be no use in my space."

Sebastian chastised, and the man screamed again as the fingers on his left hand seemed to snap off. "I asked you, do you know why you are here?"

The man kept screaming, and Sebastian waited patiently for him to abate.

He fell down before he stopped, and heaved as if he might vomit, but he did not.

"Bastard! Cock-sucking-son-of-a-bitch!"

He screamed at Sebastian, who only smiled pristinely, though he couldn't see that.

"You'll have to try much harder than that to upset me, you know. No matter. I'll give you one more chance to tell me if you know why you're here or not. I don't like stating obvious things, you should know."

The man did not respond with words. He spat in Sebastian's general direction.

Sebastian cleared his throat.

"Since the age of fifteen, you have drunk to excess so much as to make yourself black out, several times in a week. Your drinking, however, is not harmless; once drunk, as you have done for the better part of five years, you have come home to your hut, having taken all the money you earn on your farm and any change your wife earns selling needlework out to spend on inebriation, you have beaten your wife within an inch of her life. She has been pregnant twice, and both times you have beaten her around the stomach so much as to have killed your spawn, so drunken that you do not care. Even when sober, you have beaten her for disobedience; most recently, you have hit her about the head with a pan, because she could not cook dinner. She could not cook dinner because you took the money you were meant to spend on meat and bought alcohol."

The man did not answer, though he did not seem disturbed in the slightest.

Sebastian folded the paper away, continuing on his own.

"Of these capital offenses and your many smaller infractions, you have been condemned to hell under an eternity of infanticide, domestic violence, and excessive endangerment of others. Have you anything to say to these claims?"

The man sat dumb for a moment, thinking.

"I told her to make me my supper, or else. She never learns. You train a bitch the way you'd train any other dog."

The man sneered.

Sebastian pulled his glove taught with a small smile, but the man only saw darkness. He opened his mouth slowly, almost smiling, and the voice that came out was light and sickeningly giddy.

"Then let's begin _your_ training."

The shadow the man saw began to expand, malice reaching from it like a tangible thing, when there was a sudden and terrified shriek in the distance.

The shadow paused, and its victim nearly stopped breathing.

The shriek turned into a scream, a cry for help.

The demonic form practically deflated, with a tired sigh. "Well, if you'll excuse me...it appears my fiancé needs me."

The blackness faded into the form of a man who looked nothing short of exhausted, hair that should've been beautifully combed slightly frazzled, wrinkles to his once-perfectly pressed suit. He sighed again, hand to his temple, as the shrieking increased, and let himself out of the room.

" _What_ is the matter?"

Sebastian pushed the door open to find his most recent sacrifice backed into a corner, on top of an armoire, screaming in absolute terror, otherwise petrified and staring at the vanity across the room.

"Th-the-the mirror's talking! Mirror's talking! It's-it st-started bleeding! Bleeding!"

"So? It's working!"

"M-mirrors aren't supposed to talk! Or bleed! Or do anything but reflect!"

Sebastian stepped to the armoire and craned his neck up at the little creature, arms crossed with impatience.

"Maybe we're you're from. How did you even get up there? Look, this is fine."

Sebastian reached out and leaned up, trying to pull the little angel from his high place. He managed to hook his hands under his arms and pluck Ciel against his chest, trying not to consider how he would've loved to feel his little hands against his chest even more if there weren't the layers of clothes between them.

Good lord, how inappropriate.

Ciel actually grabbed onto his lapels and pulled himself closer to Sebastian, looking over his shoulder with wide eyes at the vanity behind him. Sebastian sighed and turned, thinking somewhere in the back of his mind that _This angel is lucky he's so cute_.

He swiftly deposited the angel into the plush chair and held his shoulders so he couldn't jump out of it, and leaned over him.

"Hello. Any suggestions for today?"

Ciel's breath hitched and he stiffened as the mirror responded.

"For starters, you could get yourself a tougher bride, Mister Demon. This boy is hardly a doll!"

Sebastian snarled instead of making a professional response, unintentionally tightening his grip on Ciel and sensing the nervous reaction.

Sebastian loosed his hold on the angel, and sighed deeply. It looked like Ciel had thrown the base of the light on the vanity at the mirror, opening a gash that was bleeding slightly.

"Looks like he's tough enough to leave a mark." Sebastian commented, kneeling down to look at Ciel's reflection evenly.

Ciel was staring at his reflection in terror, breathing shallowly and rapidly, leaning as far away as he could within Sebastian's grip. He didn't seem to register what Sebastian had said, or the mirror's response.

"Men are all the same; they like to beat on you. That's hardly a pinprick to what I've seen."

"This is an angel, not a man."

Sebastian informed the mirror calmly. As if in affirmation, Ciel's wings fell limp, but he was pretty sure that was panic.

"Yes, I'm sure I've seen quite enough to confirm that for myself. What are you doing with a bride so small, by the way? What kind of perverted demon am I living with, here?"

The mirror retorted.

Ciel shuddered, but suddenly spoke for himself.

"I look like this because I want to!"

"Is that really so?" The mirror quipped.

Ciel puffed his cheeks out in indignance.

It looked exactly the opposite of frustrating; it was quite cute, really.

Ciel turned to Sebastian in a swift and angry movement.

"Why are you laughing?" He demanded, jerking out of Sebastian's grip.

Sebastian didn't respond; he couldn't help it, and he shook slightly as he covered his mouth with a hand, laughing silently.

"Uh, hello?! Demon? Your little dolly looks like he's going to hit me again."

Sebastian looked up again, but Ciel was far from threatening. He was staring, dumbfounded, at the reflection, and his hand reached over. His fingertips traced the paper in Sebastian's pocket, and he pulled it out.

"What...is this?"

He unfolded the paper, briefly registering what it said, before his eyes went wide, and then slack, and he collapsed.


	18. Chapter 18

There was an angel.

It did not matter where they had come from.

There was an old woman.

It did not matter who she had been.

The old woman was rocking idly in her rocking-chair, eyes closed, listening to the wind. Eventually, pushing the chair made her ankles ache, so she stopped.

She was sitting on her small porch, her family inside.

She smiled softly.

When she opened her eyes, the angel was there.

They were sitting, cross-legged, before her chair, looking up with wide and curious eyes.

They smiled at her as softly as she smiled back. With as little effort as it had ever taken her, she stood from her chair, and extended her arms to the small being.

The angel was standing in an instant, their arm up, waiting for her to lean against it.

Instead, she wrapped her arm around the angel's like an old friend, unafraid.

Breezily, without fear of pain, the old woman and the angel left the porch.

With a gentle sigh, the old woman rested her head against the angel's shoulder.

The angel looked up.

The woman laughed happily, wearily.

The woman in red was standing, waiting, hand on her hip.

She held a chain in the hand on her hip, and a man in shackles stumbled aimlessly behind her. He smelled so strongly of alcohol that the angel could smell it from where they were standing, sickening them.

The woman in red followed the small angel's look of concern and mild disgust, and laughed as if she was saying _you brought him to me, you knew what would happen_ , but she just laughed. She extended her other arm for the old woman, who fell forward gracefully, bringing the woman in red into a matronly hug.

Now it was the angel's turn to laugh at the look of surprise on the red woman's face, and disappeared as soon as she shot them that same dangerous look.

"Ciel? Ciel, please, what's wrong?! What happened?!"

Ciel was being shaken, and quite roughly.

They opened their eyes slowly, disoriented, a headache behind their right temple.

"Oh, thank goodness! Ciel, Ciel?"

The angel groaned, and rolled onto their side.

They had been laying on the floor, and it seemed like they had only been out for a few moments, Sebastian's hands fluttering around their face.

"I knew him."

They murmured, looking down at their own hands.

"What?"

"I knew him!" They suddenly cried, pushing to their knees. "The man on your paper, I knew him!"

"How?" Sebastian seemed incredulous.

"Uh, are we not going to address the fact that you nearly started crying when your little concubine bit it?"

The mirror snapped.

"Shut up." Sebastian sighed back, resuming the flat tone he'd had before. "How did you know him, Ciel?"

Sebastian ran his hand through his hair, and Ciel heard him give a quiet, pained groan. He quickly dropped his hand, clenching his fist.

"Sebastian, you-"

"- _How do you know him_ , Ciel?"

Sebastian snapped.

Ciel's breath caught in their throat, eyes shocked.

Sebastian hadn't gotten loudly angry at them before.

"I-I don't know. I just know that I've known him. You're hurt. What's wrong?"

Sebastian stood up, ignoring his angel.

"I'm not hurt. I have an idea; come on."

"Wow, being left in the dark for, what, fifty years? To have ten hours of company, and then it's gone again? Jesus, I used to have sex for money, and it didn't suck as much as this."

"You deserved this for whatever your sins were." Sebastian snapped back at the mirror, who had begun sulking. He pulled the door open roughly. "Come on, Ciel."

Ciel made a short, angry sound, and crossed the room. He grabbed Sebastian's wrist and pulled, hard, with enough force to make Sebastian crumble to his knees, where he knelt.

"Don't lie to me." Ciel warned, their chin-length hair falling in their face as they looked down at him. "You're hurt. What happened?"

Sebastian seemed surprised, remarkably surprised, but not afraid. He dropped his eyes as if he was ashamed, but he did not respond. "Sebastian…" Ciel chastised, reaching out. They began to trace Sebastian's hairline, touch soft, voice dangerous. "If you don't tell me, I'll touch you until I find it myself."

"Ciel, don-"

Sebastian swallowed a snarl as Ciel's finger traced the curve of Sebastian's left horn, sparking a shock of sensitivity down his spine. Perhaps, if he wasn't injured, it would have been remarkably pleasurable, but Ciel quickly discovered the thin crack running around the middle of his horn, where pieces had already flaked off. Ciel gave a worried sound.

"What happened?"

Sebastian wouldn't meet Ciel's eye. Ciel inspected the other horn quickly, discovering that it was flaking, too, but not directly injured. "Sebastian, what happened?"

"I tore Claude's horn off in retaliation. I suppose I didn't realize how badly he'd gotten me until he was gone. I didn't care enough to chase him down."

Sebastian finally admitted.

"But that was so long ago, have you not slept since then?"

"Horns don't heal. Not like that." Sebastian stood slowly, giving Ciel enough time to step back.

He felt sick to his stomach with the way the angel observed him.

He grit his teeth, and managed to smile calmly. "It doesn't hurt so much, so long as it's not disturbed. The broken part will break off eventually, and it'll grow back just as it was before."

Ciel crossed their arms, looking Sebastian over skeptically. "Please; I'm more concerned that you know this man. I would like to take you to see him, and find out what that does. Let's go."

Sebastian opened the door and waited.

Ciel ruffled their feathers up against their shoulders tightly, giving Sebastian a final inquisitive look, before crossing the threshold of the room obediently.

The man lifted his head as he heard footsteps. The space he was in was barren, and not terribly dark, but it still took him entirely too long to identify the door that seemed to form from nothingness.

The cloud of darkness, of terror itself, stepped through it, and as soon as the door closed, it disappeared.

The demon wasn't alone, though.

A beautiful form stood just in front of the demon, made from light and song and an ethereal pulchritude, but somehow more terrifying in that way.

The second being was so incredibly powerful, so glorious, the man couldn't hope to comprehend, and couldn't even register enough to scream.

The angel drew near, and engulfed the man as the being inside the light knelt.

Ciel's attention fell solely to the man as soon as they stepped through Sebastian's door. They moved forward, and Sebastian crossed his arms, watching carefully from the corner.

The human shuddered, jerking away as Ciel came closer. They did not seem affected by the man's fear. Ciel reached out and touched his face, and the man, petrified, did not move.

"Qu'est-ce vous me connaissez?"

Ciel murmured softly.

The man screamed.

"He's...he isn't French."

The dark form said to the light one, which was pressed up against the man. The form withdrew the part pressed up against him, where his face felt a million different things that could only register as pain that spread out. The man couldn't hear anything intelligible coming from the beautiful creature, rather some kind of soft, light, sweet humming.

"I don't think he can understand you at all, Ciel." The demon responded to the sounds of the light, and moved forward. "Do you know what this is?" The demon asked the man.

He did not respond. The creature of immense wonder leaned away slightly, colors within the white shifting.

"I've already died!" The man cried out, scrambling away from Ciel.

Sebastian jerked to attention.

"What?"

" _WHY ARE YOU HERE?! YOU'VE NO REASON TO COME FOR ME, I AM ALREADY DEAD!"_ The man howled, and Ciel gasped, retreating towards Sebastian.

The man screamed, no intelligible sound to it, writhing.

Ciel tried to reach out, tried to help him, but Sebastian's hands were on their shoulders, pulling them away, as if he could hope to keep them safe.

The man gave a final weak cry of agony, and collapsed.

Ciel broke out of Sebastian's grip and fell forward, kneeling and pulling the man onto his back.

His face was contorted horrifically, warped well beyond what a human should have been able to do, and as Ciel tried to feel for a heartbeat, a pulse under his throat, the body stiffened, and disappeared in a cloud of ash.

Sebastian watched the angel panic, heard them cry out as the shell of the man dissolved, but he made no attempt to comfort them.

There was nothing he could do to help, anyway.

"Sebastian, what happened?! Help me, can't we help him?"

"No. There's no saving a destroyed soul."

Ciel turned back to look at Sebastian, tears welling in their eyes, clutching ash in their fists.

"What do you mean?"

"Your touch. It destroyed his soul. There's no reclaiming a lost soul; you know that."

Sebastian knelt, hesitant to reach out towards Ciel.

The angel gave a weak whimper, dropping the ash from their hands.

"He knew me."

"It's possible. It's also possible that many angels look similar, and that humans cannot tell the difference between how they perceive you. It's hard enough for them to experience an angel in a corporeal form, much less their raw form." Sebastian looked over his angel, thinking of everything he had just learned. "We do know more than we did before, at the least." He attempted halfheartedly to console Ciel.

"I don't think so." Ciel mourned.

"We do. Firstly, we know that you either aren't aware of how to contain your form, or that you are incapable, because, had you been aware, he would have seen you as I do. Secondly, we know that you touching humans is, apparently, very dangerous, which indicates a huge amount of power. Thirdly, we know that whatever he perceived you as, it was something he recognized, and something he understood to occur before death. That's very valuable information."

"But it doesn't mean anything to me." Ciel argued, leaning back against Sebastian's shoulder in their distress. Their breath was fluttery, and they were trembling terribly, and Sebastian took one of their hands in his own, wiping the ash from it.

"It means that, by process of elimination, you are not an angel of a virtue, nor are you a cherub, nor do you experience humans while alive very often. You are not a healing angel, nor a guardian, nor any kind of convoy. All of that means that you're likely not bastardized from your Carrier parent, which is extremely rare; organic angels are usually cast to the lowest tier of heaven the moment they are born. It should make it much easier to narrow our search of who you are...if I had a copy of _Angels by Purpose_ , that is. I sent a request for a copy of it, but I never received one. You must have an angel as a bride to receive a copy for them."

"Well...if you don't have a copy, I know of a demon who has an angel bride, and would probably want to know where he came from."

Ciel attempted to look at Sebastian with innocence, but their demand was obvious.

Sebastian groaned.


	19. Chapter 19

It wasn't until they had left Sebastian's domain that he realized what Ciel was wearing.

"You shouldn't walk around in just a shift, _pinnacula_."

"I'm not going to ask what your reasoning is for that until you explain what you keep calling me." Ciel responded carelessly, observing the long, doorless hallway Sebastian was leading them down.

Sebastian didn't explain, so Ciel did not ask.

"The creatures down here are not like anywhere else. If you leave yourself exposed, your unmarked skin, your small size...they will come after you in droves."

Even as he spoke, Sebastian shuddered at the thought, and stripped off his jacket. He tossed it around Ciel's shoulders, who didn't deny it.

"Well, everything else was still wet!"

"I know, and we will find you something less conspicuous to wear. The white alone is probably bad enough."

Ciel didn't want to know what he meant by that, so they didn't make any response.

"You shouldn't be coming with me." Sebastian said, after a while of silence. Ciel pulled the jacket closer around their shoulders.

"Why's that?"

"Claude is...not like me. He's very dangerous to beings like you. You shouldn't have to be anywhere near him. Alois doesn't do much to keep him in check, either; if anything, he makes it worse. Alois himself hardly remembers what he was like before-"

Sebastian cut himself off, clearing his throat politely. "Anyhow. Claude, and many like him, don't care about the purity of a being unless they can somehow distort it. I don't like leaving you as a target for that, but I don't think he would be willing to lend me _anything_ unless you were around to keep Alois distracted, and to remind him that we really do need to know who you are."

Ciel spent a few more moments looking around the hall, as if looking for a door that wasn't there.

Ciel thought of asking why Sebastian didn't act like the other demons he described, and why he was not disdainful in describing them. Ciel thought of asking why Sebastian thought the humans had sent them to him, or why so many had been sent before. Ciel thought of asking why Sebastian's mood seemed to shift so suddenly around Ciel, or if Ciel was what affected his mood.

"Why hasn't my eye healed yet?"

They asked instead.

Sebastian looked down at them, and seemed momentarily surprised.

"I am not totally sure." He said slowly, after a few moments of thought.

"No?"

"Well, there could be many reasons; if you were injured with an unholy weapon, for example, though I can't even begin to fathom how humans would have gotten their hands on something like that. It could be that you've healed as much as you are intended to, and your body sees no reason to completely go back to what it was before-I assume, therefore, that your eyes matched before-but there are a great many variables we don't know. Does it hurt you?"

"No...not really." Ciel responded slowly, thinking. "It feels...different. Not quite right, but not wrong, either. I feel like I see things differently…but I wouldn't know how to describe how."

Sebastian looked down at his angel, who was looking up at him, almost as if comparing the uninjured eye to the scarred, opening one and then the other.

He understood how Ciel felt.

Ciel shuddered. They felt as if the air itself was tense, pressurized, and they were not comforted as Sebastian shifted his attention, speaking Latin rapidly.

It took them a few moments to realize that he was speaking to a stretch of the wall like one would speak to a doorman. He extended his hand back as he spoke, and Ciel moved forward without question, closer to the demon as if he would provide safety.

Ciel paused for a moment. The demon had hardly done anything _but_ provide safety; why did they feel so wary of him in spite of that?

The wall seemed to burble and shift, parts of the stone seeming to push out, and Ciel could barely comprehend what was happening before a door had materialized, huge and gothic and rather unlike Sebastian's implied preferences.

Sebastian made a short, reserved sound in his throat, and resisted the urge to hold Ciel's shoulder against his side as the door swung open.

It swung inwards to a room like the one Ciel had first arrived in, yet also completely unlike it. There was no ceiling, or if there was, it was so high it faded into the darkness, and there was a throne at the other end of the room, made from what looked like black granite.

Claude was reclined in the seat, hands full of feathers.

Alois was sitting in Claude's lap, shirtless, face and shoulders red with blush and small drops of blood. He had a bite on his neck, and several angry purplish bruises near it. His hair was all messed up to one side, and he dropped his eyes shamefully when he noticed Ciel staring.

Ciel didn't look away, unsure of why they would. They didn't really seem to understand what was going on.

Claude seemed bored, where Alois seemed distraught; both glared at Ciel with hunger.

Claude dropped the feathers and pulled Alois to one side; as the angel shuffled his wings, more feathers fell, and they were almost completely bare. Bone was visible in some places through blackened flesh.

"You have some nerve, thinking you can just walk in here." Claude said calmly, the venom in his words tangible anyway.

"I was simply defending myself. Anyways, it's done."

Sebastian slowly rested his arm around Ciel's shoulders, giving them time to turn away if they wanted. They did not.

Claude eyed Ciel invasively.

"My god, what happened to it?"

"That's why we're here."

Sebastian held Ciel by the shoulders and swung them around so they faced him, their back to Claude, and he lifted his jacket gently. Ciel gave him a dangerous look, but obeyed, crossing their arms and spreading their wings. Sebastian seemed pleased with himself as he quickly jabbed into their shoulder, and Ciel stiffened so sharply their knees ached.

Sebastian caught Ciel before he fell to the ground, swearing cruelly.

"Stop doing that!"

Claude made a short, enthralled sound, and Alois groaned.

"You're one of those outer rim bastards, then, aren't you?"

"Be nice." Claude chastised, and Alois leaned into his neck instead of responding verbally. "So, who are you? Who're your parents?"

Ciel pulled Sebastian's jacket around his shoulders again, halfway hiding in the collar.

It smelled soothing.

"Again, that's why we're here. He still doesn't know, and neither of us have been up there so long as he's been alive, I can say with certainty. We need to borrow your copy of _Angels by Purpose_."

"Why would that help? The bastard children of the Carriers would be classified in _Angels Yet In Service_."

Sebastian shifted uncomfortably, and Claude turned to Ciel with shock. "My god, what did you do?"

"I-I don't know. There was a human, and he was so, so scared, but-"

"-Ciel destroyed his soul by touch." Sebastian finished for him, and Claude stiffened noticeably.

"You interacted with living humans?" He asked, adjusting his glasses. Ciel tried hard not to stare at the broken horn, the edges of which had since been sanded smooth.

"I don't know...that's why we're trying to find that book. Sebastian said it's only sent down for angels who marry into this place."

"Oh, yeah, I got a copy. Hold on."

Alois dropped out of Claude's lap, brushing his fingers through his hair.

Claude grit his teeth and shot a dangerous glare at his bride, but was ultimately ignored. Alois stumbled with a weak sound almost as soon as he stood, gangrenous remains falling off of the bones of his wings. Sebastian pulled Ciel close, tense, watching Alois waver. "Claude...you said this would be over by now…" Alois whined painfully, barely standing. Ciel let himself be pressed against Sebastian's side, tucking his own wings as close against himself as he could. Alois gave another cry, slightly louder, knees buckling. As he hit the ground, a rather large bone from the base of his left wing clattered to the ground, tarry blood spattered all around it.

Sebastian made a strange sound at the sight of the angel's blood and jerked Ciel further away.

Claude did not move. He only watched on as Alois struggled, blinking apathetically.

"It will end in time. This is what you get for falling, after all; it does not hurt so bad. I lost my own wings. Sebastian, too. It's not really so painful, is it, Sebastian?"

The demon did not respond right away. Ciel looked up and was surprised to see that he was glassy-eyed, gaze somewhere far away.

"...It was the most painful experience I've ever had, Alois. I'm sorry, but that's the truth."

Alois tried to laugh.

"If this is the worst you've got, you must be a real pussy."

Sebastian smiled encouragingly, but he kept his hand safely on his angel, as if impurity was somehow a disease he could contract.

"Sebastian, I'll ask you to not encourage my bride's poor language. He got enough confidence for it on high."

"Oh, come on, Claude," Alois snapped. "Only humans are really bothered by the languages _th-Christ!_ "

Alois shrieked and twitched, slamming his back against the wall.

"You know what has to happen, Alois. I already told you." Claude sounded bored, unconcerned.

Alois managed a doleful look, but gave a whimper, and jerked his shoulder blades together sharply, grabbing at the bases of his wings with twitching hands.

With a scream, he ripped one off at the first joint.

Ciel cried out and Sebastian locked his arm around Ciel, both trying to hide his face and keep him from running forward. Alois was cursing, a shaking hand dropping the remains of the blackened flesh and brittle bones, red and healthy blood running from the gaping hole in his back. Ciel twitched against Sebastian's side, and Sebastian grit his teeth tightly.

He remembered Ciel's wings, folded neatly across his chest, and the empty holes where they belonged on his back. He remembered the way Ciel's unconscious body had twitched, pained, when he touched the wounds.

He remembered his own flesh, bloodless and pale, and wings that would not open, and could only hang limp until they rotted right off him.

It was better that Alois had done it this way, he thought, but he would cease to exist before he allowed it to happen to Ciel.

Alois had quieted, bracing himself again, and dug his fingers into the remaining wing. He ripped it out, a single whimper leaving him.

He threw it aside, and collapsed.

"Sebastian, let go of me!"

Rather than respond, he only held tighter, Ciel squirming desperately against him.

Alois was lying facedown, healthy blood staining his skin and clothes.

Sebastian began to brush Ciel's hair back as he let out a panicked sob, his own wings tight against his back.

"It's alright, _pinnacula_. Alois is going to be fine."

Claude laughed, a snarling, dangerous laugh.

"' _Pinnacula'_? My god, giving it a pet name, Sebastian, really? You're in worse than Alois said."

Sebastian stiffened.

"My affairs are mine. So what if demeanors change?"

Claude smiled crudely.

"I said nothing about changed demeanors. Careful, Sebastian; your little _feather_ seems to be causing you problems."

Claude did not move. He waved his hand lazily.

"It's his book, he can do what he wants with it. You know where my library is."

Ciel tried to resist, still shocked, but Sebastian pulled, dragging him along, and Ciel was too distressed to react.

A door formed along the back wall, and Sebastian took it without looking back.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: HOLY SHIT I? WON A COSPLAY COMPETITION LAST MONTH AS CIEL PHANTOMHIVE!

no dead serious i went to jafax as ciel and my friend was sebastian and i ended up winning the cosplay competition

my instagram is lastlifecreatons and you can go check out my page for pictures

anyway i'm still shook but here's a chapter update

Sebastian pulled Ciel into his arms and used every modicum of control he had to not break into a sprint, abandoning Claude's domain and whatever god forsaken book they thought could help them, because it couldn't help the angel drowning in a panic attack in his hold.

Ciel heaved for air, tucking his face against Sebastian's chest and sobbing heavily.

Sebastian was more terrified for _that_ than anything he had seen.

Ciel was curled up into barely anything, red in the face and barely able to breathe, shaking with terror. His fists were clenched so tightly that he had created circular grooves on his palms that had begun to bleed.

"Why?!" Ciel sobbed. "Why did that have to happen?! Wha-what-what did he _do_?!"

Sebastian knelt, but could not find it in himself to make the creature stand. He stroked through his hair instead, carefully, as if handling a doll.

"Something you never will, I promise."

"H-How?" Ciel hiccuped, voice as small as anything.

"Ciel, Alois is an abandoned angel; he's not pure anymore, wasn't when he got here. You still are after going through the gates of hell, and if you're still pure now, you always will be."

"H-How could you possibly know that? H-how is it even about m-me, Alois is the one who-who-"

Ciel gasped a breath, trying in vain to calm down.

"-A being loses purity when it no longer feels guilt for doing something they know is sinful. I've watched you; though you're not one to admit it, you feel guilty about a good many things. I don't want you to feel that way, heavens, no, but I know that you do. There's no way a being like that can fall from purity. Okay?"

Ciel didn't respond. His wings shuddered thinly.

"Just get the book." He begged. "I want to leave."

Ciel's voice had lost its venom, its panic, and seemed to hang in the space between them.

Ciel tried to relax, clearly able to stand on his own, but Sebastian held on anyway. Ciel wasn't heavy, and it felt nice to hold _something_ that wouldn't burn.

Ciel stayed silent, head down, as Sebastian passed through Claude's domain, and he was half-convinced Ciel had fallen asleep, the stress too much on his little form, when he spoke softly.

"You're still pure."

"Yes." Sebastian responded, after a moment of hesitation.

"You said the mark of purity is remorse."

"To an extent, I suppose." Sebastian agreed.

"What do you feel guilty about?"

Ciel looked up, hair sliding to one side of his face, a blue and curious eye carefully observing the demon.

Sebastian turned blank, caught off-guard. He hesitated, mind running like a locomotive, before giving a soft hum, like the beginning of a laugh.

"You ask all the right questions, _pin-_ angel."

Sebastian sighed as he backed through the door to Claude's library. It was considerably smaller than Sebastian's; Sebastian had both brought down books he already had and often requested more, always with the good intent of reading them, and was a bit of a literature hoarder, never tossing outdated editions of the guidebooks. Claude had only the basics, a single shelf high on the wall above a desk. On a small stool much closer to the ground, three books were huddled together, and Sebastian had the fleeting image of doing much the same thing as Claude, working while his bride lingered just near enough.

It was the middle of these three books that was _Angels By Purpose_ , bound in pale leather and embossed with an illustration of two detached wings folded over themselves. Sebastian lifted Ciel to one side and tucked the book into his jacket.

"Well?" Ciel pressed, voice shaking again. "You must feel guilty about something."

"A great many things, little one. Most recently, letting you come with me to see what you just did."

Sebastian tried his best to evade the question, knowing Claude was listening. He'd also managed to distract Ciel.

"This place is terrible." Ciel mourned, "it does nothing but destroy. Not even the plants can live."

Sebastian looked down again at the being in his arms, so densely packed with power and yet so small, and felt a weak, pained nostalgia.

He _missed_ heaven, for the first time in a long while.

"It's not all awful." He smiled, trying to convince himself as much as Ciel. "Let me show you something rather special to me. Maybe you'll see what I mean."

He opened the door, and passed into a room that looked like a ballroom of some sort.

They were at the very outskirts of Claude's domain; Sebastian could feel his presence in the echoes his footsteps made, in the reflections on the pristinely-polished floor, the weak flickering of the chandelier far above.

The room was round, with seven doors around the walls, and everything was split into seven layers of symmetry. Sebastian warily lifted Ciel onto one of his shoulders, a small sound leaving him as the angel leaned against his horn.

"Why did you do that? I don't like being this high." Ciel responded flatly, though he did not flail.

"I...have a bad feeling." Sebastian replied honestly, trying to decide on a door as he stepped into the center of the room.

No sooner had he spoken or taken that step than the room suddenly sprung to life.

Dancers, everywhere. Music, loud and dizzyingly fast. Masks and bodies moving by in circles of seven, and as Sebastian tried to regain his bearings, Ciel shrieked.

One of the masked dancers was cooing adoringly, one gloved hand holding Ciel's wrist and the other quickly traveling up his arm. The person was standing all the way on tiptoe and had a mouth full of completely black and carefully polished teeth.

Ciel whimpered quietly, unable to understand the Latin the dancer was spitting at him, and tried to pull his hand out of their grip.

Sebastian growled dangerously, low in his throat, and the red oni mask turned to face him before giving a mirthful cry.

"Look who has finally joined the party! And you even brought a _gustatio_ , how kind of you! Darling, take a look! _Satan himself finally thinks he's not too good for us_!"

The entire room stopped as if on a timetable. Masks covered in glitter and velvet and bloody red paint all turned to face them, and Ciel managed to free himself from the grip of the Oni.

"Ooh, how naughty! My goodness, do you really cart around your angel in just _that_?" The Oni continued, the mask twitching strangely.

Ciel gave another angry cry, kicking back as another masked person pulled at his shift.

"That's no way to dress for such a party, little one." The mask that had grabbed at his clothes purred, a moth-shaped mask of velvet encrusted with what looked suspiciously like dried blood. "Though, aren't you lucky, we have just the thing!" It continued, and swung its arms back dramatically.

Sebastian snarled again as it drew too close, and then at what it revealed.

The rest of the dress Ciel had been sacrificed in was waiting patiently on a mannequin in front of one of the doors, shoes and all.

"How did you get that?!" Sebastian demanded, hoisting Ciel as high as he possibly could.

"We have our ways, my dear!" A voice jeered from the crowd.

"You know what you're meant to do if you're to keep that one, you can't bend the rules forever." The Moth told Sebastian, though the mask was turned up to Ciel.

"I've bent nothing. All my charges are unattached to me in all ways excepting the direction of their sacrifice." Sebastian responded honestly, monotonous as if reciting.

Ciel had no idea what they were talking about, but he was both too afraid to ask and too preoccupied with scratching at the cooing hands that came too close.

"Sure, whatever, but from what we've been told, this little one is similarly unattached, yet has no charge! And is just out in the open with you, dressed like that? How scandalous…" the Moth fell to cackling, and another mask pushed to the front of the crowd, made of the severed head of a pig. The smell was awful, but the way the tongue flopped out of the lifeless mouth was somehow even worse.

Rather than a high squeal, however, the voice that came out was the calmest in the room.

"Goodness, really, the solution to this is simple, Sebastian...er, I suppose it _would_ be, if you weren't...well, as you are. But really, now, wouldn't it be worth sucking up to the burns? I mean, look at this thing on your shoulder. How lovely; hell, if this had come to any of the rest of us, you know what would have happened mere seconds after it arrived."

Sebastian gripped Ciel's thigh defensively, trying to assess the room and find the thinnest patch of bodies.

"He wouldn't burn me, but it doesn't matter; I don't keep them. Considering none of you have ever questioned the wills of your sacrifices, so I'm sure that's a new concept to you." He snapped, glancing up before settling back on the Oni.

"Oh, my god! How awful!" It cackled. "Are you really pure, my darling?" The Oni asked Ciel, trying to take his hand again. Ciel scratched at him, but did not speak.

"Sebastian, now, really, are you going to just pass up this little angel? You know you can't make it a charge, I personally would hunt it down, and I know many others here would do the same." The Pig spoke, a twinge of excitement at the concept of hunting, and was met with several voices agreeing. Ciel went paler, if such a thing was possible, and Sebastian's nails began to dig into Ciel's skin.

"Come on, now, I know you wouldn't let that happen! On with it!" The Moth cried, and Ciel screamed as someone from behind them reached up and grabbed for him.

" _Fly, Ciel!_ " Sebastian demanded, and threw Ciel as far as he could straight up.

Ciel gave a small cry, drowned out by the population below him, and pushed out a heavy downbeat, strong enough to lift him towards the chandelier. He fluttered weakly, unsure of where to go, until he saw Sebastian taking advantage of the distraction, and running down the space that had been created when the dancers showed off Ciel's dress. He swept up the mannequin and shoved the door behind it open, and Ciel dove for it, screams rising from the crowd as some ducked and some reached to grab him.

Sebastian grabbed him by the arm and threw him through the door, slamming it before anyone else could pass through.


	21. Chapter 21

There was no lock on the door, but it did not matter.

None of them could have followed.

Sebastian looked up, slumping against the door.

Ciel was laying on the ground, half crumpled, his wings splayed out, breathing heavily.

"I'm sorry, Ciel. I never wanted you to have to do something like that. Are you hurt?"

Ciel didn't answer immediately, though he shook his head weakly.

Sebastian swallowed a heavy lump in his throat as he saw bloody marks on Ciel's upper arm where he'd grabbed too hard, bruises already blooming under the crescent cuts his nails had left behind.

It made him feel like curling up, like hiding and never seeing the angel-or anyone else-ever again.

He set the mannequin upright, glancing over it briefly. "Dammit." He hissed.

He wondered which one of his charges had been destroyed to get this, and if he could have saved them.

They were outside of Claude's domain, now, but he didn't know if they had entered into limbo or another demon's space.

Ciel groaned, pushing himself to his knees slowly. Shockingly, his wings did not hurt; he folded them against his back carefully.

He lifted from the floor, aching. At first, he had thought it was a wood flooring, but quickly realized that it was some kind of huge paper, painted to look like wood. It was lifting up slightly.

He looked around the room.

There was a huge hole in the wall opposite the door they had entered through and almost no furniture. There was a bed and a dresser, but as Ciel approached the dresser, found that it was like a huge block of wood had simply had lines painted on it to look like a dresser, the handles made of beads the size of Ciel's fist. The bed looked like it was made somewhat similarly, a frame of wood with felt stretched over it, a single pillow at the top made with huge, clumsy stitches. The walls were papered with a once-garish floral print that had since faded and begun to peel at the edges of the room.

There were no light fixtures or candles in the room, but a window above the bed, and as Ciel turned again, one side of the room had no wall at all, seeming to fall out into emptiness.

Ciel looked at Sebastian, who was looking at him, and seemed as utterly confused as he was.

Sebastian could not sense any other presence in the space, but he could not tell where the room was meant to lead, and his horns were dangerously uncared for. He watched Ciel climb unsteadily onto the bed, and push his hand through the window, which had no panes, only to pull it back in again and look back at Sebastian, bewildered.

Ciel made no sound as he lowered back to the floor, and as he turned back to the empty doorway, gasped quietly.

"There's a crib." He nearly whispered, crossing over the threshold of the rooms as if possessed.

"Ciel, wait!" Sebastian tried, but the angel had already passed into the other room, and Sebastian could only chase dutifully.

This room had the same wood-painted-paper flooring, but the three walls had been papered with a faded blue stripe pattern, and there was a braided rug made of huge strands of fraying cloth. Ciel was standing on tiptoe on the opposite wall of the room, leaning against a crib and looking in. The crib's bottom was made in the same way as the bed in the other room, but had thin sheets of wood coming up to frame it. There was a thick swatch of fleece, matted down and discolored, covering a lump in the crib, and as Sebastian drew closer, Ciel backed away.

There was a porcelain infant in the crib, slightly larger than an actual baby, face messily painted with black eyes and red lips and cheeks, a tuft of yellow hair curling out from a sculpted bonnet.

It was completely fake and barely realistic, yet Sebastian was still expecting it to breathe or cry.

Everything was so silent, so still. _Too_ quiet, _too_ still.

Ciel was inspecting the other pieces of furniture in the room; there was a rocking chair pushed into one corner, made from the same strips of wood as the crib, not nearly stable enough for anyone to sit in, and a rocking-horse carved out of another large block of wood, painted with basic colors similar to the huge doll.

There was a hole cut into the floor, with a flimsy rail coming up on one side, and Ciel looked to Sebastian questioningly.

"You ought to put your dress back on, first." Sebastian advised. "You saw how the dancers reacted to you."

Ciel couldn't argue; his feet were at risk of splinters anyway from the cheap wood, and he didn't like the idea of leaving his arms uncovered to have someone impure grab and burn him.

But that didn't mean he wasn't going to complain about being choked back into those corsets.

"I-I can't breathe at all! It doesn't need to be that tight!" Ciel gasped, scrabbling at the lace pulled against his stomach.

"I'm sorry, your waist is remarkably thin. Without the other corset layering it, it won't fit you." Sebastian responded, though he was smiling, because Ciel couldn't see him, and he was remarkably cute so flustered.

"As if-as if I would put them both on again! I could hardly be-end...hff…"

Ciel gasped again, pulling the collar.

"You know, these are remarkably well made. There's metal in there." Sebastian responded blandly, his fingers pulling the ribbon tighter at the center.

Though it was as close as could be in the center, the top and bottom were still extremely loose. "This...without both corsets, the dress won't stay up. It's already too long as it is; you'll never be able to walk if it's not at least back where it was." Sebastian murmured quietly.

"Fine." Ciel snapped. He handed Sebastian the other corset. "I'm going to regret this."

Sebastian held a chuckle in his chest. He let his hand linger on Ciel's shoulder.

He tried not to think about why.

Ciel tugged on the sleeve of his left arm. He huffed as Sebastian began to pull the second corset into place. He looked up, around the room, and back to the mannequin. "You said you can't sense anyone in here?" He asked warily.

Sebastian shook his head, then remembered Ciel couldn't see him.

"No. But, to be fair…I'm not in the best position. You've seen what my horns look like."

"Wait, that's how you can tell when other demons are around?"

"Not quite, I suppose. I'll say I definitely couldn't tell before I grew them, but now that they're here, most things are heightened...but as far as actually having the purpose of being able to track down other demons, I couldn't tell you. Precious little research has been done about the nature of demons."

"W-why?" Ciel huffed again as Sebastian jerked the ribbon together.

Sebastian actually did laugh, then.

"I know most other demons liken me to a black sheep in their flock, but demons in general almost never become even remotely intimate with one another. The closest I've ever seen to a bond in other demons is when they trade brides, and there are very few demons capable of communicating with any other layer of existence. Essentially, demons do not spend enough time with one another to find what they have in common, and even if they did, it would be remarkably difficult to share that information. And, Heaven doesn't really care about us anymore."

Sebastian nimbly tied the second corset into place. "There. Now, before we go anywhere, you must promise that you will not immediately head towards any sign of children. It's incredibly dangerous."

Ciel turned, straightening the back of his collar and folding his wings against it.

"It must be part of my nature. I'm telling you, I didn't know what I was doing until I'd done it."

"Then stay close to me." Sebastian sighed, being immediately ignored as Ciel crossed back through the doorway into the nursery.

"What if that's the only door in this space?" Ciel asked, peeking back through the empty hole.

Sebastian shook his head, crossing the room.

"It's not possible for a room to only have one exit unless it is part of a demon's personal domain. There must always be at least one entry and one exit."

"How do doors even work down here, that they can lead to anywhere?"

"If there was an explanation, I would tell you, but I do not know."

"This place is ridiculous. It makes no sense." Ciel scoffed, ducking back into the other room as Sebastian came close enough.

Surprisingly bold, Ciel took the steps down first, each one creaking unsteadily. It was like they'd never been used before. For good reason, Sebastian thought; they were _not_ made by someone who knew what they were doing.

They lowered into a room the same exact size as the one above it.

"Heaven is hardly better." Sebastian defended, unsure of why he even had to defend Hell.

Ciel opened his mouth to make a response, but no sound came out as he took in the room around him.

The walls were papered with a faded and stained green, but huge parts of the paper had been pulled away, exposing a cheap, unrefined wood backdrop. There was a black settee, which upon closer inspection was a carved block of wood with fabric stretched over it, a side table that had a few pieces of giant paper, folded into the basic shapes of book shells, several shelves on the wall that were empty, and a reading chair made in the same fashion as the settee nestled in the corner next to a wall sconce that looked to be simply a ball of glass half-carved into the wall, a frame painted on the paper around it.

"What is Heaven like, for us?" Ciel finally asked, touching one of the pseudo-books gingerly.

Sebastian had to open and close his mouth a few times before he was actually able to answer.

 _It's very different for you than me._

 _He still sees fallen angels as angels._

 _He thinks we're the same._

 _Oh, goodness, he can't really think that!_

"It has been quite a long time since I've been there." Sebastian began carefully. "But...it was almost the exact opposite of what I know here. Everything was light. Was...open."

Then he laughed shortly.

"For the most part." He added.

Ciel made a short sound, peering out of the giant hole where the wall should've been. "You really can't remember it at all, can you?" Sebastian asked softly.

Ciel stilled, his shoulders bowing in slightly.

"No." He responded, softer. "That's what bothers me the most...like I wasn't _anything_ , before I was sacrificed. And I...I still can't understand why I was sacrificed at all."

Ciel wrapped his arms together, stepping back from the empty wall slightly. "...I think there's another floor down there, not too far out...but I can't tell."

He turned back, and passed through another hole in the wall, the same space as the one upstairs.

Sebastian couldn't think of what he was meant to say. He wanted to reassure Ciel, but how could he? There wasn't any assuaging concerns that could be justified.

The final room was a kitchen, or at least was meant to resemble one. A rickety, uneven table sat squarely in the middle of the room, a clay fireplace filled one back corner, and the back wall was covered with another block of wood, lines painted to represent cabinets and the top of it painted black. There were large hooks on the wall, crudely shaped iron pots and pans on them, and a door against the far wall.

Ciel rested his hand on the door handle. He turned back to face Sebastian, waiting for a confirmation.

Sebastian nodded.

Ciel pulled on the door.

It didn't budge.

"Wha-? What on..?"

Ciel took the knob in both hands and pushed, then pulled with all his might, but the door didn't move at all. "Sebastian," he began, unable to hide the mounting panic in his voice, "it won't open!"

Sebastian stepped forward, taking the handle. As soon as he pushed on it, though, he knew it would not move.

"It's fake. See the trim? It's just glued to the wall, and the door's painted another color. The knob has wire in it."

"B-but you said there were always two doors, at least!"

"Because there are. The other one must be out there, somewhere." Sebastian gestured to the empty wall space, carefully monitoring the anxiety in Ciel's chest.

"It...it's very dark, out there. I mean, it's dark in here, too, but…"

"Only dim. I'm sure that...er...sure that it'll be easier to see once we're closer to the ground."

Ciel made a face.

"It's not that far, really."

"I already flew once, earlier, and it was remarkably uncomfortable!"

Sebastian looked down at Ciel. He didn't seem to be overexaggerating; Sebastian had watched Ciel's wings snap backward when he was dragged through the doorway.

But Sebastian could see the next floor down, no more than two and a half meters or so, and it would be fine. Ciel knelt at the edge of the wall, peeking down.

"I...I don't know...this place seems…"

He stood again, turning back to the room.

His eyes grew large, his pupils shrank, and he choked on the breath in his throat.

"Ciel?"

"This place...it's a _dollhouse_."

Sebastian felt a chill as soon as Ciel said it, though he knew it was true.

"We...we are no longer in my level of hell."

Sebastian stiffly pulled Ciel into his grip, almost compulsively grabbing his own horn.

"What does that mean?" Ciel asked softly, too frightened by Sebastian's tone to fight.

"Listen to me. Very carefully." Sebastian began.

"I can't protect you here. Not like I could in my own realm."

His voice was shaking, he knew it was, but he couldn't do much to change it.

"What does that mean?" Ciel begged, his hand closing over Sebastian's.

"I have a bounty on my head, here. We're in Limbo now."

"What?"

Sebastian forced himself to breathe.

"Do you remember Finny's garden? With all the plants?"

Ciel nodded, looking from Sebastian back to the darkness. "Good...you need to run. Find another door, think of that room, think of Finny, before opening the door. You do that, with every door you find, you can make your way back there. Find Finny, stay with him, and I will come find you."

What? Sebastian, I can't-"

"-Yes, you can. You're safer alone than with me, here, and it's only a matter of time before someone figures out I'm here. Don't let anyone know who you were sacrificed to, that you are pure...do your best not to run into anyone, I suppose."

Somewhere, very far away, a bell began to toll. Sebastian knelt slowly, lifting Ciel.

"Sebastian-"

"-I'm sorry, Ciel. I swear to you, I will find you again."

"-Sebastian!"

"I'm sorry."

"Sebastian!"

He turned and launched his angel out into the darkness with as much gentleness as he could.

" _Sebastian!"_

The demon shuddered and turned away, forcing the angel's cries to fall upon deaf ears.


	22. Chapter 22

Ciel was so startled, too startled, catch himself until it was almost too late.

He forced his wings to extend themselves only seconds before he hit something in the darkness, and tumbled against it gracelessly.

He cried out again, before he could help it-he was in pain, and for more reasons than just hitting ground.

He stopped rolling, finally, and could only lay there for a moment before finding he needed to actually use his lungs in order to breathe.

It didn't matter if he tried to sit up, to get his bearings; as soon as he was certain that he was leaned against a wall with no floor, he was also certain that he was hanging from the ceiling, or laying flat on the floor. He forced himself to his hands and knees, space around him tumbling even once his head stopped spinning.

He looked back, back towards where Sebastian had thrown him from, but he couldn't see anything.

Something tarry, thick, and black dripped onto his cheek.

It rolled down to his chin, and he realized he was crying.

Why had Sebastian just thrown him _away_? Wasn't he supposed to be safest with the demon he was given to?

He wiped his face sloppily with the back of his hand, pushing himself to his feet.

It seemed, he thought as he turned about, that the place was no darker than anywhere else he had been; there was just nothing there except the faintness on his flesh and clothes like moonlight, only if he looked up, the moon would not be there.

 _The moon_ , he thought, _is such an odd thing to miss_.

Somewhere to his left, he heard a faint sound, the rolling of ancient and distant church bells, and somewhere much closer, the moans of _something._

He shuddered, and forced himself to move right.

Ciel knew his memory could not be trusted, but of what he had been confident in knowing before, there were seven layers of Hell, with none of them being 'Limbo'.

What, then, had happened to Sebastian? What had he done to be so ostracized?

And how was he supposed to return to another layer of Hell, if he didn't even know from which one he had come?

Ciel forced himself to breathe, deep, and keep walking forward half-blindly.

He had to reach something eventually, and from there some kind of door.

As he moved, he considered what options he truly had. Now would be his chance to escape this place; if he truly could take a door to anywhere he wanted it to lead, why couldn't one lead to an escape from Hell?

In theory, it was possible.

But would he even have somewhere to leave to?

He tried. He tried _so hard_ , but when he thought of something he knew, someplace he wanted to be, he couldn't see anything but walls and walls of books and small glass spheres of light in Sebastian's steady hands.

In the darkness, his footsteps began to echo against something, and when he reached his hand out, touched something rough and upright.

He pressed his hand flat against it, and found a brick wall in his way.

Though the bells had long since faded into echo, Ciel knew he was not alone.

And that made him feel all the lonelier.

His fingertips caught on something against the wall, and the brick shifted to wood.

The tarry tears on his hand had dried to little more than charcoal, and disintegrated as he flexed his fingers.

Almost all of his nail polish had chipped away, the little chunks of remaining blue dully reflecting nothingness.

He found a hinge, which meant that this wood _was_ a door...but the hinge alone was almost taller than Ciel, and as he began to walk against it, found that it took almost twenty steps to reach brick again.

He leaned back, as far as he could crane his neck, and could just barely make out the dull metal of what was certainly a door handle.

He had wings, he supposed, but how were demons, who didn't, supposed to _reach_ that damn thing?

With a huff at the inconveniences others caused themselves, Ciel reluctantly stretched out his wings.

He vaulted first up on top of the hinge, toes scrabbling for a hold on the metal.

He barely balanced atop it, and had to lean against the door so he could crouch, extending his wings unwillingly.

He leapt, pounding his wings down with all his might, hoping to catch the handle before needing another downbeat.

The resounding rush of air caught in the dress, almost sending him down, but he managed to at least stay even, all the strength in his small form focused on that barely-visible handle.

He forced another downbeat, unhappy, but pleased that it sent him up substantially. It appeared that he would have to work much harder than he hoped in order to get there.

Strokes up and down, up and down, endlessly exhausting, but finally, he could reach out, and his arms closed around the handle to the door.

He dug his heels into the wood of the door and thought, hard, about where he felt safest as he pulled the handle down.

He had expected that the first thing that would come to mind to be those short, sparse images of champagne colored clouds, that single fleeting feeling of an infant form in his arms, the hush of his wings stretched fully, cool wind blowing over each feather.

So when the first thing he felt when he thought of safety was not any of that, but rather, the feeling of Sebastian's hands around his shoulders, it shocked him so much that he nearly dropped his hold on the handle.

Thankfully, the extra stress on the door was all it needed, and the latch clicked dutifully. Ciel sat himself on the turned handle and began beating his wings as best he could, pulling the door out, but he couldn't guarantee a fast pace.

It creaked open just enough for Ciel to slip through, and he fell into darkness again.

He landed easily, a puff of his wings catching him at the last second, the sound of which echoed out into vast nothingness.

He observed how readily his wings would catch him, pleased that they responded as well as any other part of him, though he folded them tightly down his spine anyway.

This space seemed to be carpeted, short and stiff fibers forming the base of what Ciel had to assume was a room of some kind.

He wished he had one of those lights; he wished he had someone to guide him.

But he was alone, so far as he knew, and mothlike blind in the darkness. So he extended one arm in front of him, though not an excessively far distance, and pressed the other to his chest, trying to muffle the thumping of panic.

His feet scuffled loudly against this carpet-his shoes, made to be smooth, were all but useless-and the sound echoed out a shockingly far distance.

His hand touched something, and as he squinted, the omniscient light of this room even less than the one before it, discovered that he was holding the foot of a huge plush chair.

It appeared to be about half the size, proportionally, to the door, but Ciel still stood shorter than the top of the foot he had run into.

Cautiously, as if he feared someone would be sitting in the chair, Ciel backed away slightly, maneuvered around the chair, and kept going in the same direction.

He ran into a baseboard, about sixty steps from the chair, and held it with both hands.

Somewhere ahead of him, a door swung open, and a giant stepped through.

He clasped his hands over his mouth, huddling to the ground immediately and trying to make himself as small as possible, pathetically aware of how frantically his heart was pounding.

He nearly cried out when he saw who had entered the room.

The demon wearing the severed pig's head, only much, much larger, stalked into the room and flopped into the chair Ciel had discovered.

It growled, and then the growl became something disappointed and desperate, and reached back to lift the mask off its head.

Ciel did not want to know what was underneath.

Still huddled against the wall, he crept as quietly as possible towards the door, where light had filtered in only momentarily.

The door was thrown in again, and another form came in, the bloody moth speaking before it had even crossed the threshold.

"Help me find that angel, and you will have your share of him."

"Why should I help you when I could hunt on my own? To the winner go the spoils; I would never share such a thing."

The moth stalked into the room, coming to stand before the pig's chair, and Ciel was thankful that he could no longer see the pig's head.

"I will kill Sebastian if I have to, if he leaves his own protection. He doesn't deserve an angel like that; he won't use him the way…"

The moth shuddered with a disgusting moan. Ciel felt faint.

But they did not yet know that Sebastian was not safe; that, at least, was good.

"Why in the hell did anyone decide to take that dress, anyway? The point of sending them down in dresses is to tear them off, not put them back on."

Ciel's fists gathered in the skirt of the very dress, aware that if the moth looked up it would see him.

"Mockery. You know how easy it is to make a mockery of Sebastian; he still thinks he's serving some divine purpose, like he's better than the goddamned angels who fall to us!"

The moth threw its hands into the air, and the pig leaned back in its seat visibly.

"It doesn't matter. I won't share that angel with you or anyone, and I will be the one to find him."

"The angel is too powerful for just one of us. You didn't get the chance to touch him; even through my gloves, he should have been completely entranced. But he was only disgusted."

Ciel, having crept to the edge of the moth's line of sight, dashed for the door.

He thought of escaping this dreadful place, of going somewhere that was safe from demons who wanted to steal him, devour him, make him a monster. He tried to imagine safety, away from it all, and was horrified at himself as the only serving memory was of waking up in Sebastian's bedroom, and the sigh of relief Sebastian had given.

He tucked down onto his stomach, and as voices rose behind him, kicked his way underneath the door.

He came out into a room about a third of the proportion of the last one; though he was coming closer to his own size, he was barely as tall as a toddler in this room.

The door he had passed under was hewn from rough, uneven planks of wood, and a fire blazed in one corner of this, unmistakably, a servant's kitchen.

There was a door on the same wall, the opposite end, that appeared to be the approximate dimensions of a pantry door.

And between it and Ciel, a grungy, filthy woman was stirring a pot of what smelled suspiciously like uncured, unseasoned guts in a cauldron over the fire.

She turned, wooden spoon in hand, and they stared at one another.

He backed himself against the wall, very much only the size of a child compared to this woman, when she suddenly scowled and turned back to her work.

"Another goddamn wedding cake." She snapped miserably, unfooled by the ring of light that no doubt hid a slut with wings from her sight. "I tell them, I tell them, I can't make wedding cakes for you if you are already married! It's not right! It's not clean! I tell them, these creatures are not angels! You don't want them! They don't want you! I tell them! And they laugh at me, and leave me here with nothing by what it takes to make their damn cakes, and for what? They never eat the cakes, they just make the pretty whores carry it around, they never bother to eat that hard work, they never want a break either."

The entire time she was grumbling to herself, Ciel had edged towards the other door, and suddenly darted towards it.

She made no attempt to follow, and he reached up, leaning into the door with all his might, pushing it open clumsily.

He fell into the next room chest-first, where what were unmistakably hands grabbed him by the underarms, holding him up.

"Whoa, there, little one. You very nearly smashed that pretty nose."

A familiar voice lilted, and Ciel looked up to see Claude looking back down at him.


	23. Chapter 23

A/N:

Hi, everybody! I know I don't often interrupt the stories I write, but if you have made it this far into my works, please consider supporting me! I love writing, and putting these out for free, but unfortunately fanfiction just doesn't give revenue, something I need to survive as a creator. If you're interested in art, cosplay, and more writing like this, you can check out my , Last Life Creations, where exclusive art and images are released, as well as excerpts from my fanfiction chapters before they're published. If you prefer physical thing to hold and have and snuggle, you can check out my Redbubble, lastlifecreator, for everything from shirts to stickers with cosplay and art on it (I have several Ciel designs). If you like soft, cute, squishy things, stay tuned on my instagram lastlifecreations for some prototypes I'm designing. (If you've been invested in my work for this long, I think I deserve it!) All three of those options will also give you some information on the comic I'm working on, which, if you like these writings, you'll definitely want to check out, and thank you so much!

The demon appeared to be alone, a crude smile on his face, and Ciel shuddered to see his elongated teeth.

Claude was hungry; it was obvious.

Ciel planted his feet and pulled himself free of Claude's grip, murmuring a polite thanks.

"My goodness, where has your caretaker gone? How irresponsible of Sebastian, to leave such an innocent thing out here. Or...I hope you have not run away."

Claude ended with a purr, eyes glinting scandalously.

Ciel could not think of a proper answer; he could say nothing of the truth, or nothing of a lie, and only watched Claude in pleading silence.

His horn seemed to have gained a small amount of footing at the crown of his head, and the smoothly filed extrusion was now at least several centimeters higher than it was last. His glasses were placed intelligently upon his nose, but lowered just enough that he could observe Ciel without having to move his head, and he swallowed some kind of sound as Ciel shuddered visibly.

He reached out, the angel effectively pinned to the door, and brushed a bit of the angel's hair to the side, holding his head up with a single finger curled under his chin so he could observe the angel's scar.

Ciel still did not speak, but did his best to appear confident, allowing Claude to inspect him as if he had nothing to fear.

"You know," Claude began, his thumb resting on Ciel's cheek, cold through fabric and tilting Ciel's head to the side, admiring how his eye shifted in what little light he had, "Alois wanted to be here. For a little while after he woke, it was all he knew about himself, and he fell into my arms without daring to even ask where he was. I have kept him safe, ever since."

"But," Claude started again, releasing Ciel from his gloved grip, turning slightly away, "he could not speak, not for a good amount of time, and now he never shuts up. I wonder, therefore, if you arrived here blind, if you're still blind, and will come to see properly soon."

Still, Ciel did not speak, and Claude gave a humorless laugh. "Your heart is pounding, little one; how in goodness' name do you have a heart to beat?"

Claude stepped towards the center of the room, which, now that he was not crowded against the door, Ciel could see was a lavish dressing room, though each shelf and rack was fully devoid of clothing.

There were two closets at the opposite end of the relatively thin, relatively long room, both with tightly closed doors.

"What do you think I will see, if I am blind now but no longer will be?" Ciel dared, hoping to distract Claude further. Claude seemed fidgety, keeping a close watch on the door Ciel had entered through, as if he feared it would not stay closed.

 _It's because this isn't his domain_ , Ciel realized. _He has no control over this place._

"I'm sure you have learned by now that I do not keep multiple brides." Claude had started again, glancing into a mirror long enough to brush some loose hair back into place, "and that Alois is beginning to lose every sense of what he was before. You saw his wings." Claude cleared his throat, distasteful, before turning back to Ciel and beckoning for him to move further into the room.

"Come, now, little one, you have certainly traveled far since I saw you last, and you must be tired. Sit for a while."

Ciel, though unwilling to be obedient, lowered himself carefully onto the plush bench at the center of the room, glancing to both of the mirrors in turn, which remained silent. Claude continued from his last point. "Alois is no longer an angel, not really, and he seems unbothered. He seems to think I... _love_ him."

Claude said the word mirthfully, somehow implying that as a demon he was wholly incapable of such a thing. "Of course, it's because he says he loves me, but I think we both know better. I know what he tried to do, when you two ran off."

"So why not stop him?" Ciel countered, wary now that Claude was still standing while Ciel was seated.

Claude smiled cruelly.

"I should admit, I was curious to see how you would respond. I must say, I was surprised. Alois is quite persuasive, for all his other traits."

Claude gave a dramatic sigh.

"I think it would be a poor idea to speak of him now, anyway."

"Is he alright?" Ciel asked, ignorant of Claude's wishes.

"For now, he's fine, but I don't want to speak of him, because I would rather not make you uncomfortable."

"Why would I be made any more uncomfortable than I already am?" Ciel asked, met with another humorless laugh.

"There's that sass I saw before. Because I want you to be my bride, Ciel."

Sebastian turned, and in that instant Ciel really did see Sebastian, but then he came closer and tried to reach out, predatory and uncaring, and Ciel shied away from Claude's touch in alarm and suspicion.

"You already have one, Claude, and I know you only keep one."

"Correct you are. If you say yes, come with me, be mine, you would never need anything, never want for anything or anyone."

"Until I fall from purity and rip my own wings off." Ciel countered, scooting slightly away, though he did not dare to stand.

"I don't think you will fall, not so readily, and I could never want a bride who was anything less than you. Even then."

Claude knelt, looking Ciel intensely in the eye.

"You're a liar, Claude, you'll have to be a better one than you are for me to ever believe you."

There was a sharp creak, too fast to register. Claude had pounced.

Ciel suddenly found himself flat on his back on the bench, one of Claude's hands pinning his right arm to the bench, the other holding his jaw, legs forced into place by Claude's knee.

"Can't you see that I'm offering you a way out, Ciel? You'll waste away in Sebastian's hold; he will never care for you, will never want from you, and you will go unfulfilled until you waste away. Can you not see that I want to treat you properly?"

"Can you not see I want nothing to do with you?" Ciel rebuffed, suddenly remarkably upset, pulling his hand free from Claude's. The demon growled, low and dangerous, and Ciel was remarkably afraid and incredibly willing to not let it show.

Claude leaned in, close, as if he wanted to kiss Ciel, then moved away.

"You ought to be more careful with your words, little feather. You will certainly not want to upset me."

"If you were hoping to enthrall a new bride, this is hardly the way to do it. All you have done is prove to me how right I was to not be interested in you. Now let me go."

"Or what?" Claude sneered. "All this time, your owner has not come for you, and you are incapable of helping yourself."

Claude closed his hand around Ciel's foot, forcing his knee up to his chest. "See, now, I had asked politely, but how pointless that is. I don't have to ask if I can just _take_."

"You can't take anything that will stay." Ciel countered darkly, trying to act unphased by the hand now moving down his side, his thigh, his knee.

There was a _snap_ , swift and sickening, and the shock was so strong that Ciel had to look down and see his foot dangling to understand that the ankle had been broken.

Then the pain came in a blinding rush, and a scream threatened to free itself, but Ciel manage to choke it into a gasp, tears welling but refusing to fall.

He scrabbled for his own side, the only thing he could think of.

Claude was looming close again, fangs bared, and Ciel closed his eyes as hot, angry breath washed over him.

"Try to run now, little bird. You will come to understand what is good for you."

Ciel's fingertips ripped at the lace at his side, gasping, only able to think of one thing.

Claude's hands were moving towards Ciel's other ankle, slow, and in a flurry of panic, Ciel extended his wings until they surrounded him and Claude.

Claude froze as the scent of _angel_ washed over him, eyes dilating noticeably, and Ciel had finally torn a large enough hole in his corset.

As Claude made a low, ravenous sound, Ciel ripped the metal boning from his side and drove into Claude's neck with as mighty a scream as he could muster.

Claude did not move, not at first. His eyes continued to widen, and all the air left him in a single breath, but he did not move.

Then he was almost thrown backwards by some invisible force and he cried out, a horrible, evil scream, and lying on his back flat on the floor, still screaming, Claude closed his hand around the few remaining inches of exposed metal and pulled.

The extraction produced no blood, and as soon as it was out of Claude's body, he passed out, sleep no doubt the only thing that could save him now.

Ciel sat up with a sharp, pained breath, watching his foot flop uselessly.

"Thank you."

He glanced up. One of the mirrors was slightly lighter, now, and though it was angled away from him, he could see himself reflected in it.

"Well, much worse would have happened, had I done nothing." He responded, standing on the other foot.

"You can't walk on that." The other mirror said, and Ciel took a breath.

"I could, maybe, it would just be incredibly painful."

Certainly, as soon as any weight was placed onto his leg, Ciel nearly whited out.

"Can't you brace it with something?" One of the mirrors asked.

"If I had something to brace it with." Ciel responded slowly.

A cupboard that had previously been closed swung out, revealing its contents.

Leaning heavily against the wall, Ciel hobbled towards it.

There was a small note attached to the inside of the door.

 _Two sides of one coin,_

 _One reflecting truth, the other lie_

 _Only one question,_

 _Only one door will let you out._

Ciel lifted the note, glancing over its poor grammar and distinct lack of scheme, and another wave of pain shot through his leg, forcing him to drop the note and lean against the cupboard.

Inside, there was a coil of stiff fabric, and Ciel snatched it up quickly.

Claude stirred, though he was not awake, and Ciel dropped where he was, hastening to position the limp foot at a right angle from his shin.

He wrapped the fabric, cross after cross, around the ankle, until it was so stiff that he could not move his foot at all, and when he stood, though it was still burningly painful, he could at least stand with it.

"That won't last, dear." One mirror said.

"You'll never be able to walk on that thing normally, love." The other told him, and he looked to the closet doors at the end of the room before looking back to the mirrors.

"One of those doors will kill me."

The mirrors chuckled, but didn't respond.

"You know which one."

There was silence.

"Only one of you tells the truth."

Each mirror dimmed slowly.

"How smart is he?"

"I'd hate to hurt this pretty thing."

They murmured.

Ciel looked at the doors.

They were identical, like the mirrors, and there was nothing that could have set them apart.

He closed his eyes, slumped against the wall, and just listened to the silence of the room and his own ragged breath.

He wished Sebastian was there; he wished Sebastian had been there to protect him; he wished Sebastian was there to know what to do next.

But Sebastian was not there, he was not there and Ciel had held his own, Sebastian was not there and Ciel was, and he was smarter than he knew, more powerful than he knew.

Ciel grit his teeth and hobbled to the nearer mirror.

"Which door would the other mirror tell me to go through?" He demanded.

It sat in silence for a moment, and then said, softly, "The left door, dear."

Ciel backed away, nodding slowly.

He thought of Heaven, where injuries only lasted as long as they were being inflicted, where his ankle would hardly have been broken before it was healed again, and found that he would rather have thought of deep, restful sleep, something one did not need in heaven.

He took the right door, letting it click behind him as the mirrors called out.

It let into complete inky blackness, so thick that Ciel felt he was swimming more than shambling.

The space seemed huge, and as he managed a step out, found that the ground was soft, almost fleshy.

He shuddered, but moved forward, hands forward.

Time was lost, in this place, and soon Ciel's footsteps were, too, in the silence and dark, and Ciel wiped a tear away from his cheek.

Ciel froze with a frightened breath. He thought he'd heard something, in the dark.

There.

He'd heard it again.

It sounded sort of like slithering, like something passing over itself, but it was drier, and multiplied, like hundreds of separate parts moving at once.

A shudder ran down his back, and Ciel grit his teeth.

This was true hell, outside of Sebastian's protection, and any number of horrible things could be there. Ciel wondered if any beast would be kinder to a sweeter-looking thing, and she decided that even if it didn't help, it certainly couldn't hurt. Slowly, Ciel stepped forward again, her hair in heavy pigtails falling in curls between her wings, some kind of comfort.

She felt a hand on her shoulder.

Ciel turned, prepared to come face-to-face with a demon like Sebastian or Claude, and screamed.

She would've _much_ preferred a humanoid demon to the mass of arms and hands that dragged itself out of the void, grabbing hold of whatever part of her it could reach.

She screamed again and fell down as she tried to back away, the monstrosity eagerly reaching for her skirt. Ciel rolled onto her stomach and bolted forward, but it was too late. The amalgamation already had its grip on her dress, and it was pulling her back with the power of a dozen hands.

The hands were all the same olive skin tone, but the fingers were different; some hands had stubby, short fingers with chipped nails, while others were slender and carefully shaped. It didn't matter; she could not see where the arms ended, if there was something on the other end of them, and she was too focused on trying to keep the hands off of her to worry about where they came from.

She was quickly overpowered. Everywhere, they were grabbing her, burning at the small spaces of exposed skin at her wrists and around her throat, tangling in her hair, and hoisting her onto her back above them. She screamed again, this time with much more anger, and the hands didn't seem to react. They crept up her broken ankle and one slid up to her knee, trying to rip her stocking. She kicked as hard as she could and she heard several somethings snap, probably fingers, but the thing did not slow. Two more hands found their way inside her skirt and one grabbed at her breast, several holding her ankles and trying to pull her legs apart. The hands around her arms dug their nails into her, hard, and as she screamed again, a loud, echoing gunshot rang out from the void.

The mass of hands relinquished their hold on Ciel, and as she dropped, two more shots were released, presumably into the monstrosity.

Ciel hit the ground with a weak cry, breathing heavily and terrified of moving.

"Are you alright?"

Ciel looked up.

A woman in a blue dress and wine-red pigtails looked down, her glasses pushed up onto her forehead, and a gun of human design in one hand, a sphere of light in the other.

Ciel nodded unsurely.

The woman gave a brief smile. "Good, I'm glad I made it in time, yes I am. Very smart of you to scream so loud, like you did."

She dropped her glasses back onto her face and extended a hand. Ciel backed away, still on the ground, staring at her hand with still-horrified eyes. "Right, sorry, stupid of me. I won't burn you, you know, even though I'm a human."

"Who are you?" Ciel managed weakly, pushing herself to her knees and assessing the new damage. Though she was badly shaken, there was only a single rip to her dress, the burns on her throat and wrists, and one of her pigtails had been pulled out. The woman with the gun looked to the _thing_ she'd shot with disdain.

"Depraved creature. It never should've come into existence in the first place. In life, I was a midwife, but I was stolen from a little village outside Brighton, and sacrificed. I was supposed to be a concubine, I was, but the demon I was sent to takes no brides. He asked me to be a maid; I didn't refuse. I thought he meant cleaning houses, yes, I did, but he really meant cleaning up beasts like this. Who are you?"

Ciel stood unsteadily, pulling her loose hair over her shoulder.

"I...I'm not sure. I was sacrificed to be a bride, too, but I'm an angel...though I can't remember who. The demon who received me wants to get rid of me, but since I don't know who I am...he can't do anything until he's sure I'm not important."

The human looked down at Ciel curiously, tilting her head to one side.

"You know, it's quite rare for demons to not want or keep brides. What is your demon's name?"

Ciel hesitated visibly.

"Sebastian Michaelis, or so he has told me."

The woman's eyes crinkled as she smiled.

"As I have been told, too. Ciel, if that is your name, I think that you and I are of the same demon...I knew another charge had been received, let me look at you."

She circled Ciel, not touching, but seemed pleased.

"You are one of Sebastian's charges?"

"Yes, I am. I had heard the news, that an angel was sacrificed, but I heard it was a little boy, yes, I did. But you're an angel-age is nothing-and, well…"

She gestured vaguely towards Ciel's dress, clearing her throat.

"Where is Sebastian, anyway? I cannot imagine he would have left you out in such a dangerous place."

Ciel shuddered, and the woman knelt.

"Oh...oh, dear. Don't tell me you ran away?"

"No." Ciel answered immediately, confident. She crossed her arms carefully. "He-we were...separated, through no cause of mine."

The woman stood again, hoisting the gun onto her shoulder, and looking out into the darkness.

"You ought to come with me. We'll go back to his domain, and you can wait for him with me, if you'd like."

The beast gave a shudder, fingertips twitching, and Ciel nodded immediately.


	24. Chapter 24

Hi, everybody! If you have made it this far into my works, please consider supporting me! I love writing, and putting these out for free, but unfortunately fanfiction just doesn't give revenue, something I need to survive as a creator.  
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The woman eased her gun onto her shoulder, circling slowly in the darkness until she seemed to have decided on a direction.

She began to move, with severe intent but slow enough that Ciel was not left behind.

After a few strides, she glanced down to Ciel, and a little laugh escaped her.

"Why did you give yourself such short legs?"

"I didn't give them to myself." Ciel huffed, far more strained than she cared to admit. "And my foot's broken, anyway." She added grumpily.

The woman seemed surprised at this, briefly glancing over Ciel again, before slowing her pace considerably.

"You need to rest, certainly. How did that happen, dear little angel?"

"I…"

Ciel hesitated, looking down at her ankle. "I was attacked... by another demon."

"My god! How did you get away from a demon?!" The woman cried in shock and awe, adjusting her glasses.

Ciel lifted her arm, pointing out the missing metal support from her corset.

"I stabbed him."

The woman began to laugh, resting a hand gently on Ciel's shoulder.

It didn't hurt.

"You are a fiery little being, aren't you? I don't think I would be anywhere so bold without a real weapon, no, I wouldn't, but you have done quite well for yourself! Oh, Sebastian will be proud!"

She tousled Ciel's hair loosely with another laugh.

Ciel smiled softly, but genuinely, and pushed her hand away, softly pretended to be annoyed.

"I mean, if I didn't do anything, he would've broken the other one and taken me anyway, and probably have killed his current bride...if he hasn't already."

Ciel shuddered suddenly at the thought of Alois, his neck snapped as easily as Ciel's ankle, still facedown, wings slowly turning to dust around him.

Ciel dropped his eyes.

"Oh! Oh, good god, you changed!" The woman cried softly, freezing in her tracks.

"I sure did." Ciel responded, after taking a moment to confirm. "It happens, sometimes."

The woman began to laugh, overwhelmed.

She rested her hand on Ciel's shoulder, and cupped his cheek.

"I think I understand now why angels are so often infertile!" She laughed, before shaking her head and beginning to walk again.

Ciel followed unsurely.

"Angels can't have babies?"

He asked, after a few moments of silence.

The woman looked at him with a sly smile.

"You're very cute, I think. No, angels are usually not capable of carrying children. I hadn't known of any reasons why, just that it was. But it can change."

"How can something like that change?" Ciel asked, suddenly sharply curious...or maybe just trying to distract himself from the mounting pain of putting weight on his ankle.

"Well, I help, surely. Demons try to bring their angels to me, sometimes, but I only help angels who come on their own. It's not right for someone else to make that decision for them."

"How can you possibly help?"

"I didn't know that, either. My best guess is because I delivered children in life, the blood of fertility coats my hands, even now. But you're related to a Carrier, aren't you? Though I've often heard complaints about Gabriel's many children, I haven't ever met any Carrier spawn. I wouldn't know about your level of fertility."

"How do you know so much about angels?" Ciel asked, hopping a bit to catch up to her brisk pace, wings beating just once to intense resolve.

She laughed encouragingly as her hair whipped into her face.

"You're quite powerful with those. I guard Sebastian's domain, and angels often wander out into the darkness. Sometimes they're running away...sometimes they're just lonely. I listen when they decide to talk."

Ciel was quiet, for a bit. How was it that a human, who likely died illiterate, was more knowledgeable about angels than him?

He began to really worry that something truly was dreadfully wrong with him, something toxic that the demons wanted.

"Who is Gabriel?" Ciel finally asked, trying to distract himself yet again.

The woman did not seem phased that he did not know these things.

"An Archangel. One of the first, you know. From what I hear, they're quite...flamboyant."

She cleared her throat with a little huff. "I met one of their sons...he certainly lived up to the name. Anyway," she shifted abruptly, stopping and stooping to the ground, "we'll be safe soon, so you may rest."

She placed her gun on the ground and extended the ball of light in her left hand. She swung it in a circle, spinning about, and let it fall from her hand. It rolled against the nothingness, until it was interrupted by a wall in the darkness.

The woman lifted her gun again and followed it, feeling the wall.

She found a door, ornately calm, and pushed it open.

Ciel followed her into a lavishly overgrown room.

"I know this place…" Ciel began, reaching out and touching fabric leaves.

"I should hope you do!" She laughed sweetly, before cupping her hands around her mouth.

" _FINNY!"_

She shrieked, falling almost silent amongst the leaves.

But something felt wrong, very wrong.

Ciel shivered abruptly.

A watery, shaking voice came back.

"Rin?"

"What's the matter?" She called back, moving into the foliage. Ciel followed, somehow already knowing the answer.

Finny came out of the plants, eyes red-rimmed and whole body trembling. Immediately, he fell into Rin's waiting arms.

"Bard's gone." He finally managed, shaking sharply. "He's _gone_!"

"Oh, Finny, it's okay, he'll be back. You know he goes out sometimes-"

"-No." Ciel interrupted. "He's _gone...Gone_."

He wasn't sure how he knew it.

The woman choked, and fell silent.

Slowly, her knees gave out, and she sank to the ground with Finny the only thing tethering her in place.

"How?" She finally managed, voice thick.

Finny shook his head and buried his face further into her shoulder, sobbing brokenly.

The grief did something strange to Ciel.

He couldn't have hoped to describe what.

Slowly, he stepped forward, and crouched over the two humans.

His wings formed some kind of canopy, and he placed a hand on each of their shoulders.

They fell silent, and Ciel began to choke on heavy tears that didn't belong to him.

"Where is he? What's left?" Ciel asked, though his voice didn't feel like his own, his body unfamiliar.

As if possessed by his request, Finny stood, and began to wander into the flora.

Ciel followed obediently, his wings fully extended against the ground.

Only Rin, left behind, noticed how the plants blackened and shriveled as his feathers passed over them.


	25. Chapter 25

Sebastian shuddered as Ciel's voice faded away.

As soon as the angel had disappeared from his sight, his chest swelled with a horrible pain, so cripplingly strong he nearly buckled.

He gave a short, quiet groan, managing to stay on his feet. Distantly, he heard the sound of Ciel hitting the ground, and Sebastian knew that he could not feel the same pain.

He could only hope that what he had done was right.

Sebastian couldn't go back through the last door, he knew it would no longer open for him, but if he moved forward, he would only be making his presence here more obvious, leaving evidence of himself everywhere.

Regretfully, he reached into his pocket and tugged out a pair of white gloves, the kind too many demons wore.

He slipped them on, ascending the stairs to the rickety dollhouse.

He kicked the mannequin over; it hit the ground with a surprisingly soft and resigned _thump_ , and he rolled it under the bedframe. A strategic tug of the felt covering the bed, and the only way someone would be able to find it was by the faint scent of the angel.

For once, Sebastian was thankful that the humans had so desecrated his angel, effectively disguising most of the telltale sweetness.

He passed through the nursery again. The doll that had been watching the ceiling now had its eyes closed, as if sleeping soundly.

Sebastian couldn't possibly understand what had made Ciel so singularly obsessed with it.

Oh, that angel. Sebastian could only hope that Claude wasn't actually dumb enough to think he could chase Ciel by luring him out of Claude's own safety as much as Sebastian's...

Even as Sebastian descended once more to the first floor of the dollhouse, he could smell the stale sourness of the air. How had he possibly missed it?

His own domain was distinctly different, and should have been noticeably so, and Sebastian was so blindly confused as to how he could no longer sense it that he began to wonder if he had been wrong.

It was possible; he'd had to draw his own conclusions, just like the rest of them, but he had been so confident of his own senses that first time, when they'd all found themselves here, scrambling to find their rightful positions.

He remembered the panic of discovering what else was down here, the pain of discovering the full extent of his new duties.

He, like the humans he punished, had long believed god had given up on him.

She had looked after them, at first. She had even visited, sometimes, and brought with her any angels willing to visit their departed friends.

Few returned, though, after seeing what had become of those wingless fallen angels, and as more and more became abandoned, less and less angels visited or sent letters, until eventually not even She made the trip anymore.

Then the fighting had started, the factioning of anybody with their own domain, and the confusion and depression.

He still remembered when the first angel bride had arrived.

He never saw it, never met it, but he knew that it had been destroyed in less than a human day.

Things calmed down, after that. Boundaries had been set, and humans sent their own, both by sin and sacrifice, and not much had changed since.

Well, if they had, Sebastian had scarcely left his own domain to find out.

He knelt, looking down out of the house.

Just barely, he could make out wood grain below him, likely a table that the house was resting on.

He swung himself down to it, shoes clicking carefully.

He reminded himself of the direction he had thrown Ciel, and walked directly away from it.

In the dark, he passed by another dollhouse, its front sided with strips of paper, fading to yellow, the front door a painted rectangle of wood.

He didn't look in at the windows. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what was inside.

He passed another dollhouse, then another, and he had scarcely realized it was a whole town before a miniature church bell at the steeple of a plywood-and-plaster doll church began to toll.

It was empty, he was certain of that much, yet he was still violently uneased by the concept of such a large sound in so vast a silence.

A shape moved in the upstairs of a nearby house, nothing humanoid, but dangerous, and Sebastian began to consider the houses. Several of them had doors, though, as wide and reflective eyes began to shine through the windows, he found that ones that would be reasonably safe to enter were suddenly hard to find, and his horn was no longer merely aching so much as searing, like it was burning up right on top of his head.

The bell began to echo, out into nothingness and somehow coming back, and Sebastian worried horribly about Ciel.

He pulled his jacket straight on his shoulders, and pulled on the false front door of the nearest dollhouse.

It swung out, exposing a long dining table, and Sebastian crossed through.

The bell fell silent with the closing of the door.

Again, though Sebastian could not sense anyone near with what partial functionality he had, it did not mean that they were not potentially there.

All he had to do was look at the table and know that this was beyond him; under a thin white shroud, a small body was curled on its left side, displayed as if the main course of some rotting meal. A plate at each seat, politely upside-down, further proved this.

Sebastian thought of Ciel, even though this figure had no wings, and was nauseous.

He looked to the other end of the improbably long table and room, and found he could just make out another door, the handle curved slightly upright.

He tried not to look at the presumed corpse on the table as he passed it, but he couldn't help but notice a hand extending from under the cloth, blackened and burnt.

Sebastian paused.

His hands closed around the shroud, and he lifted it carefully.

The entire body was blackened, skin fused to itself, but Sebastian could unmistakably see the chest heaving, the charred remains of this human not yet dead.

He folded the shroud back, and found that this human's hair had melted to already-scarred flesh, a long shard of metal trapped in a hand of blackened nails.

What were once long strands of whitish-grey hair had fused to sutures on the man's body.

Sebastian of the house of Michael stood before what remained of the man who had sent his most recent bride to him.

Much of Sebastian's ability had turned fickle and abandoned him when his wings did the same, but what little had clung to him rose into his chest now.

Somehow, there was something horribly selfish in his desire to save this man; he knew he held him in no kind regard, considering he was the very demon that had burned him, and would only hope to be able to ease his pain enough to somehow get out of him who Ciel really was, how those humans had somehow managed to gain enough power to trap and kill an angel.

Even in the few moments it took for the demon to question his motives, he regarded the flesh of this victim's face, eyelids and lips melted together, the only saving grace that his nose appeared to have totally charred off, the acrid smell of charcoal lifting in clouds every time the broken chest heaved, and paused in removing his gloves.

He had done this. He was well aware of that.

But these wounds should have killed humans; not even a demon should have been able to survive such wounds, yet here he was, a breathing body, somehow having survived both this and the trip to hell. The longer Sebastian thought, the less it made sense; indeed, he had barely had enough power to save his angel, and those wounds were child's play compared to this.

Sebastian tugged his glove back into place.

He couldn't let Ciel know about this man, or know that he had been the reason Sebastian did such a thing to him. The little angel would be torn apart by the guilt, never having been meant to punish humans, not like Sebastian was.

The man made a choked, horrible sound, aware that something was in the room with him, and Sebastian turned away.

Sebastian lifted the watch out of his pocket, but when he opened it, it gave no indication of any movement within his workplace.

Sebastian left the room through the opposite door.

It opened back out into a dead space, a familiar space, and Sebastian closed his eyes.

He reached out, feeling the smoke that began to filter into the space, clouding around his ankles like fog, but with that heavy smell.

He thought, hard, about his study, all those beloved books. He imagined Ciel, curled up and sifting through books, pausing suddenly and pointing at something on the page.

That's me, he could imagine the angel saying. I know it. That's who I am.

"Show me who my angel is."

Sebastian asked aloud.

He opened his eyes.

Smoke rose up, engulfing his hand and stacking upon itself, and took the vague form of a figure, holding Sebastian's outstretched hand.

The figure was taller than Ciel, reaching Sebastian's shoulder, and though it was just smoke, no detail, he could hear it breathing, soft but labored breaths.

The smoke had its head hunched into itself, and seemed to huddle closer to Sebastian just slightly. The smoke raised its head, empty face peering towards Sebastian, and extended what were clearly meant to be wings from its back, raising them up until they engulfed Sebastian, huge wings that couldn't possibly have been Ciel's.

Slowly, carefully, deliberately, the smoke raised a second, much smaller set of wings, stretching them upright above the figure, the same size as Ciel's.

The smoke stumbled forward, falling into Sebastian, and as he moved to catch it, utterly forgetting that it was just smoke, the huge wings broke apart, falling over Sebastian to the ground and dissipating in tendrils with the rest of the smoke, until only Ciel's figure remained, clutching Sebastian's hand.

"Who are you?" Sebastian asked.

Ciel's figure lowered its head, folded its wings, and lost its form. It fell to the ground, and was gone.


	26. Chapter 26

so ya y'all writing commissions are still open and now my has information on the video game i'm developing! it's been a slow process, especially as my wrist pain is only getting worse...i'm sure you've noticed how far apart my updates have gotten. Anyway my is Last Life Creations n you can get info about commissions on forgottenwoundsartist on tumblr.

Love y'all babies

-/-

There was a man, lying out on a sheet on the floor.

He had not fallen there.

There was another man, younger than the first, kneeling over the man on the floor, whose eyes were closed.

There was an angel, limping terribly, wings limp against the ground behind him.

The angel didn't need to ask what had happened; the veins of the man's face, near his temples, were blackened.

The surviving man moved away, wary of the angel, as he closed in on the corpse.

He curled over the body, extending delicate hands, tracing the black in the man's veins.

A woman slipped into the room, followed closely by a hulking and dark entity, who began to speak, but fell silent and watched.

Ciel didn't see anything; Ciel was hardly even a part of the angel present, not knowing what he was doing, only that he was.

Finny saw a figure glowing with blinding darkness and incomprehensible light shrouding the man who had comforted him when he first awoke here, and he heard singing, soft and not possibly human.

Mey-Rin saw the corpse of the man who taught her how to use a gun being lifted into an angel's arms, an angel hardly half the size of the body he was prepared to carry, though he did not stand, only eased the man's head into his lap.

Bard opened his eyes to see the face of a porcelain doll looking down at him, haloed in light and humming serenely, crying black, sooty tears, feathers closing him into a controlled environment of sourceless light.

And Sebastian, Sebastian saw an angel with barely enough energy to stand bring a dead man back to life in the darkest annals of Hell.

-/-

Ciel looked up as Bard gasped sharply, then immediately rolled to his side and began heaving. He seemed satisfied and heavenly, smiling faintly, unaffected by the man whose body was determined to vomit on his skirt. Of course, nothing could have been vomited.

Finny, who still struggled to see Ciel clearly, heard Bard and began to laugh. Ciel's wings folded away, and he slowly lifted his hand, wiping away the blackened tears on his cheeks. Mey-Rin was crying, though she could scarcely tell why, and stumbled forward toward her friends.

But then Ciel's light faded, and he gasped as sharply as Bard had, and took his head in both hands. He began to tremble, and curled forward, rocking slightly back and forth.

Sebastian watched his angel shudder, and finally seemed to comprehend that he was _home_ and _safe_.

He swept down, kneeling between Ciel and the man he had saved, so relieved to see his angel at all that he nearly crushed his wings as he embraced him.

Ciel did not react, not at first, still crying those black tears, and as Sebastian lifted the small angel further into his arms, closing his eyes and breathing in the comforting smell of the angel, Ciel twitched with a pained whine.

Quickly, shamefully, Sebastian relinquished his tight hold on the angel, simply supporting him with one arm as he lowered him back to the ground.

"What's wrong, _pinnacula_?"

Sebastian asked, unaware of how his human charges all fell silent and stared at him with wide eyes.

Ciel took a handful of skirt and lifted it, exposing a leg that was wrapped so heavily with fabric that it was stiff and resembled something mummified.

Sebastian gently wiped a tear from Ciel's cheek, the fluid soaking into his glove, where it hissed to make contact with a demon.

"What happened, Bard?" Sebastian asked, though he was hardly paying attention, gently pressing into Ciel's leg, trying to assess the damage. "Can you remember?"

Bard, who had managed to stand, though he was still shaky, rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yeah…'bout that...I can't remember much. I know I definitely wasn't in _here_ …"

Ciel, who still hadn't bothered to speak, made a small sound and gripped Sebastian's wrist as he found where the fracture was.

"Thank God it didn't kill you!" Finny told Bard, wrapping his arm around Bard's and leaning into his shoulder.

"No, thank that little angel." Bard corrected, gesturing weakly to Ciel, who smiled back weakly, still wiping at blackish fluid on his face.

"How did you do that, Ciel?" Sebastian asked, gently lifting his face and inspecting the scarred eye and the tarry tears it wept. "He was killed from possession, how did you bring him back?"

Ciel opened his mouth and made to speak, but yawned suddenly instead, little mouth full of little teeth stretching open. Even Ciel seemed surprised, but clearly exhausted, and he leaned into Sebastian's shoulder. Sebastian let him.

"I don't know." He murmured softly, a sharp breath as Sebastian lifted his legs.

"You did well, my angel." Sebastian praised quietly. "I knew you would make it back home."

Ciel fell asleep in Sebastian's arms, the exhaustion finally too much.

Sebastian stood, hoisting the angel gently, and turned again to his charges.

It was then that he saw the way they stared at him.

"What?"

Mey-Rin laughed first, coming forward and lifting Ciel's limp arm into his lap.

"Fond of him, are you?" She asked kindly, retreating and wrapping her arm around Bard.

"He just managed to bring back a man who had been possessed and left for dead." Sebastian remarked, with a a warning look.

"So, then, you're not fond of him? After all, I suppose he did find me out in the darkness alone…" Mey-Rin ignored his glare, a clever grin threatening to make him smile, too.

Sebastian cleared his throat.

"He needs rest, and you do, too, Bard. Welcome back to us, though I didn't get to see you go."

"Why do you keep calling that thing a 'he'? How can you tell?" Bard asked, gesturing weakly towards the pile of lace and fabric in his demon's arms.

Sebastian cleared his throat again awkwardly.

"Don't worry about anything just yet, Bard. Rest, for now."

Sebastian turned away with the angel, sighing his relief just to feel the weight of the angel in his arms again.


	27. Chapter 27

Sebastian found that he didn't want to let the angel go, when he made to lean over his bed.

He had already thrown the poor thing away, and Ciel had done so well, had made it back so quickly, and all on his own.

He had even managed to escape Claude.

Sebastian knew the demon's smell, and it was ingrained into Ciel's pain, lingering on his legs.

Ciel had finally stopped crying, the possession having been purged, and breathed calmly. Sebastian brushed his hair away from his face gently.

He tried to convince himself that it was because he had been injured, or that it was a sense of pride, for saving Bard, for coming back safe, but truly, it was just because he had missed the angel.

He had missed the angel terribly, and that scared him. He didn't want to let the angel go, didn't want to leave him, could hardly even bear that thought of making him a charge like Finny or Mey-Rin or Bard.

Sebastian sat against the headboard and rested Ciel's head in his lap, who sighed in his sleep and tucked his hands closer to his chest.

Sebastian brushed the angel's hair back with gloved hands, watching the angel rest.

Sebastian began to cry.

The realization of what he had done to this angel was only now settling within him, now that he was safe again, and the relief faded as sharply as the panic rose.

He wasn't fit to care for Ciel, not fit to look after him, not fit to even touch him.

This angel needed to go back up.

It was clear from the power he exuded so casually, so almost-accidentally, that he was needed on high; not even Sebastian in the height of his healing days could have purged a possession without even knowing _how_.

Such unintentional ability, Sebastian had never seen. He briefly considered that Ciel could have been some kind of hybrid, half-Carrier, half-something...Else.

Sebastian knew better than to only consider unsinister options.

The angel had purged Bard's possession through no heavenly means; if any usual angel had done the same, the human would have vomited out the poison that filled their body, but Ciel, Ciel _took the possession into his own body, then purged it himself._

Again, Ciel shifted, trying to find comfort against Sebastian's hip, and Sebastian drew out the book they had borrowed from Alois.

He stared down at the cover, pale, unopened. The wings on it made him shudder. They were crossed exactly as Ciel's had been.

Did he really want to know who this angel was?

It was then that Sebastian realized. He wasn't thinking of Ciel as _this angel,_ not really, not truly. It was _his angel._

He was needed on high. He was powerful.

But he was _Sebastian's_.

But nobody had missed him yet, or at least, nobody had found him yet, and if he was so powerful, he would have been retrieved as soon as he was found. Had the angel not been _given_ to Sebastian, after all? Was he not, by the logic of being given, now belonging to the demon?

Why give him back, especially if nobody had asked?

He placed the book on the nightstand and rested his arms around Ciel's shoulders.

Ciel awoke to the sound of breathing.

It was comfortable, the way he was positioned, so he did not want to question or move. His lower leg was itchy, but it was distant, a significant upgrade from the previous searing pains.

He made to lift his head, but still tired, decided better of it, and fell asleep again before realizing where he was or who was with him.

Sebastian awoke to the strange feeling of absence over his side. He opened his eyes, tired though he was, to find that Ciel, curled up next to him, had adjusted his arm, and Sebastian was feeling cool air where his arm had been crossed over the demon's torso.

To say that the angel was _next to_ Sebastian would have been an understatement. With his chest pulled overtop of Sebastian's stomach so that his head rested over the center of Sebastian's ribs, his thin legs curled around Sebastian's far longer ones, he cradled the angel with his wings limply filling the rest of the space of the mattress.

Sebastian watched the angel sleep, his eyelashes dark against pale cheeks, lips slightly parted as he breathed calmly, chest lifting and sinking in tune. Sebastian lifted a finger, brushing silvery hair behind Ciel's ear, and Ciel hummed in his sleep, chin tilting as if to chase Sebastian's touch.

Sebastian sighed, closing his eyes.

This was no good.

Whatever it was in the pit of his stomach, the twisting, churning feeling that made his chest tight, he couldn't seem to shake it, and now, with his angel curled up on top of him, the feeling was strong enough that he was nearly struggling to breathe, physically impossible, considering he had hardly any need to breathe at all, save for habit. Ciel stirred, only barely, his leg curling closer around Sebastian's, his fist tightening against Sebastian's chest.

He couldn't bear to even wonder what his angel had seen, out there, beyond his protection, what he'd had to do to return to it, and as he stroked through his hair, held him close, Sebastian seemed to realize what he thought the smoke had tried to tell him.

Ciel was missing some part of himself. Something that kept him from being whole.

Sebastian stroked over Ciel's temple. His memories? His eyesight?

Sebastian's horn began to ache, dull, pulsating slightly.

He did not want to get up, did not want to leave Ciel, sleeping so tenderly, dependent upon Sebastian for his comfort. He watched the tiny angel's chest rise and fall as he breathed, and when he lifted his fingers away from Ciel's temple, his glove catching on his hair, Ciel gave a weak, unconscious sound of protest. He felt, again, the same smugness, the same lust, as the very first time he had lifted the tiny bundle of feathers and complaints, that Ciel sought out comfort from him.

That in some way, Sebastian was needed by him.

Needed by anyone, anymore.


	28. Chapter 28

Ciel woke again to the sound of something he couldn't quite place, but knew he knew. Slowly, he pushed himself up on his arms, looking down at the demon he'd been resting against. Slowly, he retreated his limbs that had been sent out over Sebastian's body, and he sighed in his sleep as he let his arm fall away from Ciel's shoulders.

Ciel scooted himself to the edge of the bed gently, wary as he stepped to the ground. His ankle trembled, but in no way hurt, so he pushed himself to his feet slowly. He wobbled a bit. It felt like an entirely new leg he was trying to work with, and was stiff and unfamiliar.

He did his best to move silently, but in all honesty, he was learning how to use his leg for what felt like the first time, and he wobbled and tilted uncontrollably.

He held the post at the corner of the bed for stability, looking over to Sebastian nervously as he did.

He paused, interested in how the demon slept.

Sebastian seemed peaceful, calm, but like he could wake at any moment, only lightly resting. He certainly seemed less tired than he had when Ciel last saw him awake.

Again, Ciel heard that strange sound, some kind of scraping, or maybe sliding, and he turned away.

The room let back out into the long library, chairs and tables neatly arranged, and he slipped between them to the railed landing at the other end of the room in silence, descending the stairs that accompanied it.

At first it was too dark to discern anything, when Ciel let himself down to the bottom steps. It had let out into the empty room, the one with the oil on the floor, not the one with the throne, and as Ciel watched, a dim light drew closer.

From out of the darkness, Alois skated up to the stairs, cradling a cloth-covered ball of light. He seemed tired, weary, and shoved the cloth into Ciel's arms before withdrawing quickly. He was wearing his jacket properly, now, and the sleeves were stiff and unused to being worn.

"I never ended up getting you that light." He spoke hollowly, as if it could explain everything, before spinning elegantly and skating off into the darkness.

He came back before long, observing Ciel, who, still weak, had dropped himself until he was sitting on the third step, feeling the fabric that cradled the light.

"You could've just made one yourself, you know. It's why you're sent with pearls."

"What?" Ciel finally spoke, beginning to wonder if Alois knew why Ciel was so weak.

Alois looked at him quizzically, before reaching up into his own hair. He found a pearl and freed it, dropping it to level with Ciel's face.

"Press your mouth to it."

Ciel made to protest, but knew he would yield no answers simply by demanding them, so he leaned forward obediently and kissed the pearl in Alois' hand.

It was cool against his lips, but as his own heat touched it, it seemed to warm on its own, and as he kept his mouth pressed to it, found that it was suddenly expanding, growing, and was blinded as it began to glow in its own.

He gave a surprised, disturbed cry, leaning away and shielding his face nervously, but when he opened his eyes again, found that it had stopped growing as soon as he'd stopped touching it. Alois held a fist-sized ball that was glowing with a pure, strong white light, so overpowering that it hurt directly to look at. But Alois was staring into it apathetically, breathing deeply.

"I've never seen one so bright. No wonder Claude likes you better."

He heaved a heavy sigh, and dropped the ball of light.

It hit the oily ground with a resigned _thunk_ , not bouncing or breaking.

"At least you're still alive. At first I thought he'd killed you."

Ciel stood again slowly, his full height shorter than Alois, but at an advantage with the stairs.

"' _At least'?!"_

Alois managed, and then, out of nowhere, he was screaming.

Ciel could barely translate what the angel was screaming at him, about how long he had belonged to Claude, about how Claude had never liked anyone else more, about how Claude didn't love him anymore, he only wanted Ciel, and Alois buckled, hitting his knees, his screams going hoarse, until he was just crying, sobbing, falling into the darkness on the floor.

There was a rush of cool air behind Ciel, and then Sebastian's hand was on his shoulder silently.

Alois didn't seem to notice or care, holding his head in his hands, dragging his hair into his face. He was still crying, shaking, but quieter, tremors upsetting his wingless form.

Ciel made to reach out to the other angel, but Sebastian's hold was stern, and he said to Ciel quietly,

"Let him be. You cannot help him, not now."

Sebastian's hand left his shoulder, and Ciel heard him ascending the steps behind him, but he stood where he was, watching Alois cry, until he had finally quieted. Staring at the ground in front of him, holding his shoulders, he croaked out a final warning.

"If Claude can't have you, he won't stop until nobody can."

Alois shuddered in a breath, pushing himself to his feet. "It's the same thing he's done to me." He finished, turning away.

Ciel watched him stumble into the darkness until he could see him no longer, then leaned down and lifted the other ball of light, covering it with the cloth.


End file.
